Two happy years in Ceylon

"Two happy years in Ceylon" by C. F. Gordon Cumming is a travelogue written in the late 19th century. It offers a vivid, first-hand portrait of colonial Ceylon’s landscapes, people, religions, wildlife, and monuments, as well as its shifting economy and infrastructure from coffee to tea and from Galle to Colombo. Observant and painterly, it blends natural history, archaeology, and everyday life with the impressions of an energetic traveler. The opening of the work moves from glowing press notices and a preface into an introduction that explains the author’s family ties to empire and sport, the difficulties of earlier travel and mails, and the loss of a brother in Ceylon; it then recounts a first, enchanting glimpse of the island en route to India and a later return at the Bishop of Colombo’s invitation. Early chapters sketch recent changes: coffee’s collapse and tea’s rise, booming pearl fisheries, restored irrigation tanks, Colombo’s new breakwater and crowded harbour, jinrikishas, and new industries such as cotton mills paired with mission-led industrial schools. The narrative then turns to sensory travel scenes—arrival at Galle, spider-like outrigger canoes, encounters with Singhalese, Tamils, and Moormen, markets, “steamboat jewels,” and a gambler’s toss—set amid flamboyant flowers, climbing ferns, fireflies, and sea phosphorescence. A dawn excursion brings coral collecting, young cocoa-nuts, and portraits of cocoa and areca palms with betel-chewing customs, before departure for Calcutta. Returning after three years, the author reaches Colombo, describing the Pettah’s crowds, bullock carts (and cruel branding), abundant fruit stalls, and the Bishop’s base at Mutwal beside St. Thomas’s College and the cathedral. Education, missions, and daily village life—curry and rice, oil-sleeked hair, and bananas and the traveller’s tree—receive concise sketches. The section closes with a brisk history of Colombo Fort and the Dutch siege, breaking off mid-siege.