Colombo, Saturday morning, 7:45 – Your time 2:20 a.m.

Galle Face Hotel.

I posted all I had prepared for you from Kandy before I left there for Nuwara Eliya.  There I arrived on the Wednesday afternoon & saw Mr. Allan. I stayed at the Keena Hotel, kept by an Alloa[1] man. I found the climate there quite home-like & as it is over 6,000 feet above sea level, you can judge what a change it will be from Colombo. It’s also a lovely country. Next day at 12, I left to spend the night at Kotagala[2] with G. Berry’s friend & left again yesterday morning at 10. It’s a 3-mile walk to & from the station, a lovely place & tea gardens all around. While at Nuwara Eliya, Mr. Allan & I went through the “Scrubs” tea estate factory[3] during the early morning, 7:30, about 1 mile from the hotel, & saw the whole process & each bought 1lb Tea (1/9) of what we saw produced. I may consume it or part with it before long. I arrived here last night at 6 & got your letter (& paper) dated Feb’y 23 & Willie’s 24th, & I need to tell you how sorrowful I felt & could only say “God’s will be done”. I do pray & trust my dear father may survive, & that we may meet again ere it be the will of God to call either of us. [2:97] I will look very anxiously for news at Hong Kong. I know you will do all as you say & on that score I feel content.

I note Mr. Park’s death, poor soul, what a long lingering, weary time he has spent on his bed. “Rest comes at last”. The last letters & papers you would post to Bombay or Calcutta I have yet to get, & they were to be sent on to Hong Kong, & I expect the two manifold writers there also. I am going to see about my berth in the Verona after breakfast & hope I may secure one as it will be too hot to stay here long. It is the hottest season too at Colombo. By the way, the “Journal” says Capt. Forbes is paying a visit to Ceylon. Well, Ceylon is a very grand country indeed & has to be seen to rightly understand it. Vegetation is so very rich & variety great. Kandy is a fine place & the railway right through to the terminus Nana-Oya[4] is a wonderful work of engineering, the curves are most sensational & most of the way is cut out of the face of mountains, & on the one side rock face which you can touch, the other some thousands feet to the plains. One of the curves describes a soda water bottle & in a remarkable small space too, & other places we travel under over-hanging rock, which projects right over the carriages & you can [2:98] look out of the carriage & up & see the edge. Really it is sensational. 2 engines up & down, but they need no steam coming down, but greater care & slower some parts than on going up. Nuwara Eliya is 5 miles from the terminus.[5] I had the carriage up but got 2 rickshaws down: 1 for self & 1 for the luggage I took to last me, & it was 800 feet down to the station, & you should have seen us going down, the one with the luggage in front & his heels were seen at every lift. It was a treat I assure you & most lovely country, flowers & foliage, one place a very beautiful display on the side of the road on a rock fall of scarlet runners & such color. This would have suited you, & in the gardens at Nuwara Eliya, the lilies, like yours, grow wild & they are lilies, oh, the lovely flowers they had & geraniums. All colours & like small currant bushes & ferns, real trees of them, & fuschias [sic] in profusion & this all the year round. No palms up there but lower down & about Colombo, dense jungle of palms loaded with cocoa nuts & bananas[6] growing every where. I shall not forget what I’ve seen up country in Ceylon. The scenery was worth travelling for even had I not had a mission to fulfil. Mr. Allen was delighted & so was G. Berry’s friends.

[2:99]

Now it is just 3 p.m. I wrote a letter down in the writing room to enclose with this, which you will find.

This is the hotel I came to last Saturday morning on arrival & I left most of my baggage till I returned yesterday night. I went to see about my berth this forenoon & no further forward yet, & can’t ascertain till 10 tomorrow morning as the “Arcadia” from home for Australia has her China passengers to disembark to “Verona” before we can obtain assurance of accommodation. Several are here waiting like myself.[7] I see a notice up in the hotel hall that passengers for Verona will embark at noon tomorrow, 20th Sunday, at the jetty: so far so good! The steamer this goes home with is the German mail “Barbarossa”, & calls with mails at Naples. She leaves here at 8 p.m. Then I see the Orient “Oriba”[8] [sic] is due here homeward on 23 & takes mails, so if I dont get away tomorrow, I will write by her.

I’ve got the same bedroom I had last Sat. & look on the Indian Ocean, & now the beautiful blue waves are roaring on the shore & sending a fine breeze into my room, which is refreshing. I took a [2:100] Rickshaw – scores are at the hotel front, so also carriages – to go to Cook’s at 9:30 & had him till 12:30. Went to the Cinnamon Gardens & Museum[9] but it was terribly hot. Several passengers are about this morning, out of the steamer “Barbarossa” & several had tiffin in the hotel at 1:30. I met some in the museum.

Now this is the last page of No. 2, as you will see, & it’s oily on the margin. The greased black paper has caused that. I hope you are able to make all my writing out. The last 2 leaves by last post were very faint but you will contrive a way to make it out. Willie, tell G. Berry, Mrs. Brown’s, brother, – he whom Mr. & Mrs. Berry went to see on the Japanese steamer at Middlesbro, – was staying at Kotagala[10] with them & on his way home he has left the employ. Mr. Brown had not got back from his journey but he would be pleased I called. I wired her in the morning early before leaving Nuwara Eliya & the brother met me.

Love to all.

[3:1]

No. 3

[1] Town in Clackmannanshire, Scotland.

[2] Inserted on facing page: “Allan.

Hotel Alloa man.

62.

6,000 feet above sea level.

Kotagala”.

[3] Inserted on facing page: “‘Scrubbs’ Tea estate”.

[4] Inserted on facing page: “terminus Nana-Oya”. Correct spelling is Nanu Oya.

[5] Inserted on facing page: “Called sensation rock”.

[6] Inserted on facing page: “Jungle, bananas”.

[7] Inserted on facing page: “Steamers in Colombo”.

[8] Probably means SS Oruba.

[9] Inserted on facing page: “Gardens & museum”.

[10] Inserted on facing page: “Fireflies at Katagola”.