absorbed
the water long before the sea is reached. Here in the north of Ceylon
quite a number of rivers besides the Kalaar, or rather Kalaru, down
which Robert Knox and his companion escaped from the power of the
Kandyan tyrant, present similar conditions of roaring down in flood at
one season of the year and being dry or only dotted with waterholes at
another, the dry season. Poor Sandy Brown had experience of these
rivers in floods when, with a Frenchman named Grandidier, he visited
the pearl banks and recounted bis adventures in the Observer. Mr.
Twynam, who I suppose has walked not only over the highways and byeways
of his large Province, but also through the recesses of every jungle
which conceals an irrigation work, once followed in Knox's footsteps
down the bed of the Kalaru. He so frequently sunk some distance in
quicksands, that he does not recommend pedestrianism over dry
river-beds to ordinary human beings susceptible to heat and fatigue,
which his own iron constitution set at defiance. The joke about the
Government Agent of the Northern Province is that if any person wishes
to secure" master's favour," he will give him the chance of ten to
thirty miles of a hot walk over loose sand and through dense jungle, by
reporting the position of one of those almost innumerable bunds of
irrigation tanks, which the Sinhalese in the palmy days of their rule
in Anuradhapura, scattered over the north and east of Ceylon, and which
the " Damilo " invaders took a demoniac pleasure in scattering into
ruin, salubrity and population disappearing as the result of broken
bunds' and water run to waste. Certainly since this pearl fishery
commenced, no person present has worked harder, in longer spells, or
with less regard to the comforts of regular meals or the necessity of
sufficient sleep than Mr. Twynam. The Government Agent in his capacity
of Superintendent of the Pearl Fishery, has to initiate, watch over and
guide all the proceedings, listening patiently to complaints (some of
them childish), and rendering help to those who cannot at once hire
coolies or obtain long jungle sticks for their private " kotoos." In
these private "kotoos" alone, situated at a good distance from the
inhabited portion of the town, are the pearl shells allowed to putrefy
and be washed. The Government enclosure is simply used for the
reception of the oysters from the boats, the counting of them, which I
now find, is most carefully done and »he division of the Government and
boats' shares. As soon as the latter are defined, and that is within a
very short period of the arrival of the boats, the shells are instantly
carried away and retailed to the crowds who are waiting to buy in
larger or smaller lots. Even up to this morning, the fifth of the
fishery, the only openings, washings, and searches for pearls have been
by purchasers of these small lots. The large purchasers are gradually
ripening for the harvest, the blue bottle flies instinctively resorting
to what they recognize as fitting food for their young, and soon there
will be such a scene of life-in-death, as beggars aH power of
description. The hideous odour, which has left a coppery taste on my
palate makes me glad that no official duties bind me to remain beyond
tomorrow morning, but that I am at liberty at length to realize a dream
of my life by having a look at the Giant's Tank, the Bock Temple of
Dambulla, and the great " Buried Cities" of Ceylon. I would bestow pity
on those who remain, but for the fact that I suspect they would resent
any misplaced sympathy. The'gentle and delicate lady who_ adorns
herself with a necklace of those seaborn gems, which are, of all
others, most emblematic of all that is chaste and pure, would be
shocked and horrified beyond measure, were she to see and especially smell the
mass of decomposing and moving putrefication, out of which the lustrous
pearls in her necklace were evolved. But the officials and all
connected with the fishery seem to have adopted Vespasian's principle,
that the money realized does not smell. I have it on Mr. Twynam's
authority that it is no uncommon circumstance for the people interested
in lots of putrefying oysters, to sleep covtjortably aver the reeking mass. The
truth seems to be that the smell of the decomposing oyster-flesh,
however horrible to ordinary olfactories is not really prejudicial to
health, and that all concerned are aware of this and when, to use the
Scotch phrase, they "feel the smell," they turn their noses to windward
and say " Who 's afraid 2"
