any one of his counselors who dared to disagree
with him, also wreaking his vengeance upon the individual's innocent
family, males and females, by treating them in a similar manner.

The immense tank at Kandy is of modern construction, having been
finished early in the present century by the king whose name we have
just given. The heavy embankment which holds the lake in its bed has
been made into a broad and most charming esplanade, decked with
handsome shade trees, thus surrounding the basin with an inviting
driveway and promenade, enlivened by choice flowering shrubs, whose
names only an accomplished botanist could remember. Among them the
ever-fragrant cape jessamine is conspicuous, together with beds of
violets and mignonette. Palms prevail everywhere on the island, with
their bare trunks reaching sixty or seventy feet upward, at which
point they throw out their deep green, gracefully drooping foliage in
thick clusters. The lake is about three miles in circumference,
encircled by a low stone wall, and is, judged even by modern rules, a
remarkably skillful piece of engineering.

The Maha-velle-Ganga rises in the base of the neighboring mountains,
and, flowing past Kandy, turns to the north, finally discharging
itself by several mouths into the ocean far away on the east coast,
near the port of Trincomalee. It drains in its course upwards of four
thousand square miles of territory, being a hundred and thirty miles
long, and is navigable by small boats nearly to Kandy. The hills which
encompass the town make of it a verdant amphitheatre, and are
themselves dotted with flourishing tea-plantations, mostly owned by
English agriculturists, the growing of tea, as already explained,
having largely superseded, or perhaps we should say supplemented, that
of coffee throughout the island. In the higher regions, near the
foot-hills, where the big river rises, there used to be a great coffee
district, healthy and populous; but alas! malaria and jungle fever lie
crouching upon its lower banks like a beast of prey, ready to pounce
upon the passing and incautious traveler, while hungry, wide-jawed
crocodiles lie half-concealed in the low mangroves, ready to snap up
any dog or young native child which thoughtlessly approaches their
domain. The Ceylon crocodile is a large animal, quite common on the
inland rivers and deserted, half ruined tanks, and frequently measures
over twenty feet from the snout to the tip of the tail. In the
m