n. It was
Switzerland without its ruggedness. It was Italy on the southern side of
the Alps, as "Philip van Artevelde" best describes it:

Sublime, but neither bleak nor bare
Nor misty, are the mountains there;
Softly sublime, profusely fair;
Up to their summits clothed in green,
And fruitful as the vales between,
They lightly rise
And scale the skies,
And groves and gardens still abound,
For where no shoot
Can else take root,
The peaks are shelved and terraced round.

I am inclined to think that, of all the beautiful railway rides I have
ever taken, this was the finest. From the rice-fields of the plains we
passed upward through endless tea-plantations, where every inch of soil
was preserved and utilized by the construction of artificial terraces.
In the midst of these plantations, rubber trees were set at intervals.
There were many instances when we looked down from our airy perch, on
the edge of a precipice, at least a thousand feet, and saw ourselves
on the side of a veritable amphitheater of mountains towering a
thousand feet above us and covered with rows of tea-plants from the
bottom to the top. This amphitheater was often two miles across, every
foot of the ground minutely cultivated and a perfect sea of verdure.
But, as we went up, the palm gave place to the pine; cold succeeded to
heat; and to be at all comfortable at our hotel we were obliged to
order fire in our rooms.

Beautiful for situation as was Nurwara Eliya, we were glad, on account
of the January cold, to leave it. And we went to Kandy. I wonder whether
our word "candy" is derived from that sweet place. I agree with some
celebrated author, whose name I forget, in saying that "Kandy is the
loveliest city in the loveliest island in the world." Of late years
Kandy has become the resort of tourists, though the present war has
greatly diminished their number. A hotel that was accustomed to
entertain fifty guests now has only half a dozen. But the beauty of the
place abides. An artificial lake, with an island of green in its center
and winding among a forest of stately palms, is surrounded by a circlet
of hills. On the summit of one of these hills is the Missionary
Rest-house, founded and endowed by a wealthy Christian woman for the
relief of pilgrims, as was the House Beautiful of Bunyan's story. There
we were invited to afternoon-tea, and as I looked upon the fairylike
landscape I almost thought the Gar