I Never Experienced Greater Disappointment In An Expectation Than
On My First View Of Colombo.
I had spent some time at Mauritius
and Bourbon previous to my arrival, and I soon perceived that the
far-famed Ceylon was nearly a century behind either of those
small islands.
Instead of the bustling activity of the Port Louis harbor in
Mauritius, there were a few vessels rolling about in the
roadstead, and some forty or fifty fishing canoes hauled up on
the sandy beach. There was a peculiar dullness throughout the
town - a sort of something which seemed to say, "Coffee does not
pay." There was a want of spirit in everything. The
ill-conditioned guns upon the fort looked as though not intended
to defend it; the sentinels looked parboiled; the very natives
sauntered rather than walked; the very bullocks crawled along in
the midday sun, listlessly dragging the native carts. Everything
and everybody seemed enervated, except those frightfully active
people in all countries and climates, "the custom-house
officers:" these necessary plagues to society gave their usual
amount of annoyance.
What struck me the most forcibly in Colombo was the want of
shops. In Port Louis the wide and well-paved streets were lined
with excellent "magasins" of every description; here, on the
contrary, it was difficult to find anything in the shape of a
shop until I was introduced to a soi-disant store, where
everything was to be purchased from a needle to a crowbar, and
from satin to sail-cloth; the useful predominating over the
ornamental in all cases.
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