re recent periods, and its
actual condition at the present day.

I was made sensible of this want, on the occasion of my nomination, in
1845, to an office in connection with the government of Ceylon. I found
abundant details as to the capture of the maritime provinces from the
Dutch in 1795, in the narrative of Captain PERCIVAL[1], an officer who
had served in the expedition; and the efforts to organise the first
system of administration are amply described by CORDINER[2], Chaplain to
the Forces; by Lord VALENTIA[3], who was then travelling in the East;
and by ANTHONY BERTOLACCI[4], who acted as auditor-general to the first
governor, Mr. North, afterwards Earl of Guilford. The story of the
capture of Kandy in 1815 has been related by an anonymous eye-witness
under the pseudonyme of PHILALETHES[5], and by MARSHALL in his
_Historical Sketch_ of the conquest.[6] An admirable description of the
interior of the island, as it presented itself some forty years ago, was
furnished by Dr. DAVY[7], a brother of the eminent philosopher, who was
employed on the medical staff in Ceylon, from 1816 till 1820.

[Footnote 1: _An Account of the Island of Ceylon_, &c., by Capt. R.
PERCIVAL, 4to. London, 1805.]

[Footnote 2: _A Description of Ceylon_, &c., by the Rev. JAMES CORDINER,
A.M. 2 vols. 4to. London, 1807.]

[Footnote 3: _Voyages and Travels to India, Ceylon, and the Red Sea_, by
Lord Viscount VALENTIA. 3 vols. 4to. London, 1809.]

[Footnote 4: _A View of the Agricultural, Commercial, and Financial
Interests of Ceylon_, &c., by A. BERTOLACCI, Esq. London, 1817.]

[Footnote 5: _A History of Ceylon from the earliest Period to the Year_
MDCCCXV, by PHILALETHES, A.M. 4to. Lond. 1817. The author is believed to
have been the Rev. G. Bisset.]

[Footnote 6: HENRY MARSHALL, F.R.S.E., &c. went to Ceylon as assistant
surgeon of the 89th regiment, in 1806, and from 1816 till 1821 was the
senior medical officer of the Kandyan provinces.]

[Footnote 7: _An Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, &c., by JOHN DAVY,
M.D. 4to, London, 1821.]

Here the long series of writers is broken, just at the commencement of a
period the most important and interesting in the history of the island.
The mountain zone, which for centuries had been mysteriously hidden from
the Portuguese and Dutch[1] was suddenly opened to British enterprise in
1815. The lofty region, from behind whose barrier of hills the kings of
Kandy had looked down and defied the arms of