This delay was to me very agreeable, as I profited by
it to make an excursion to Candy.
There are two conveyances from Pointe de Galle to Colombo--the mail
which leaves every day, and a coach which starts three times a week.
The distance is seventy-three English miles, and the journey is
performed in ten hours. A place in the mail costs 1 pounds 10s.,
and in the coach 13s. As I was pressed for time, I was obliged to
go by the first. The roads are excellent; not a hill, not a stone
is there to impede the rapid rate at which the horses, that are
changed every eight miles, scamper along.
The greater portion of the road traversed thick forests of cocoa-
trees, at a little distance from the sea-shore, and the whole way
was more frequented and more thickly studded with houses than
anything I ever saw even in Europe. Village followed village in
quick succession, and so many separate houses were built between
them, that there was not a minute that we did not pass one. I
remarked also some small towns, but the only one worthy of notice
was Calturi, where I was particularly struck by several handsome
houses inhabited by Europeans.
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