Colombo—In Haste

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 394, 30 June 1928, Page 24

Colombo —In Haste

Written for THE SUN by

R. J. BRETT

-V"0 other sight, they say, is so moving as the first view of an Eastern land. Ceylon—“ The Pearl of the Orient,” as guide-books call it —-is a pearl with some flaws of Western influence, which are most manifest in Colombo. Yet the first outrigger canoe, its sail of immoderate bigness and its brown crew reclining an inch above the dangerous and brilliant sea. . . . The first coconut palms—the first, that is, not sadly exiled in a sub-tropi-cal garden. . . . The first pair of humpy cattle, walking offendedly before a grass-hooded cart. . . . The first unashamed, undeserving hand outstretched for alms. . . . These must lose their charm with too much seeing, like all the beauty and strangeness of the earth. But a green traveller, who spends some crowded and bewildering hours in Colombo, will not remember such sad philosophy. Here the East shows her most pleasant face, and so lacks somewhat, for a jaded palate, of the dark fascination that belongs to some Indian cities. No doubt the town has crime and pain and misery enough, but none that obtrudes itself. Here are no spectral shapes of famine, no displayed horrors of deformity and disease, like those of India. It is easy (as requisite) to harden one’s heart against the many beggars, for they ask you with comfortable, cozening smiles, or even with a humorous pretence at command. But. never or rarely do they whine. The average Cingalese, before middle age, has an extraordinary physical charm. The babies can be indescribably delightful, the elder children only a little more describably. The young men and maidens are often absurdly beautiful, with the eyes of gazelles, and other features most delicately formed and placed. The great majority are slim: the plump or gross ones are merchants or moneylenders. All others, even middle-aged, all the workers and unwealthy idle, have a grace and rhythm of attitude and movement that would distract a sculptor. They cannot unwind their turbans, cannot so much as scratch themselves, without taking some pose that it seems a sin to leave unrecorded. The native

clothes are of cotton, made possibly in Lancashire, and coloured (when they are not white) with aniline dytc. Yet these mean stuffs and jarring huei are strangely dignified by their wearers, or by some quality of the air and light. The crowded streets of th« native quarter make a perpetual feait for the eye, not of beauty alone, but of infinite variety. In “The Fort,” the business quarter are handsome and rather expensln shops. But one soon turns from their plate-glass windows and orderly cot» tens —from the S3rd novel of Mr. Edgar Wallace, the large-labelled slat of “Delicious English Cake,” and tbfi discouraged-looking Australian appi®* —toward the native bazaar in Tbs Pettah.” This was the resident* suburb of the Dutch burghers in tin 17th and 18th centuries but now itl narrow streets are lined with littl* af tiny shops and stalls. Some of the* it must be said, contain goods tb< one may get. as easily in a back street of New Zealand. There was a gramophone shop, for instance. whfca diffused, as we passed, the nose Miss Vaughn de Heath in “Dewn P? the Winegar Woiks,” and other t ilac« had distressing quantities of pate* medicines or shockingly-coloured o!«e graphs. But the food-shops (*» these were most numerous, by far seemed full of mystery and character Heaps of caked, discoloured sand aw gravel were probably suit and sup* of some excessively unrefined quality Mounds of curry-powder and chu> pods rose everywhere, beside rice dark flour, and vegetables untamuw as mandrakes. The fruits were Emusweet bananas on their stalks, P®* apples, mangoes, and stranger f h!np nameless to us. Still mere notabb were the heaps of dried fish —small** whitebait or long and svelte as dog-fish, but alike in their contort* shapes (perhaps twisted by the sue* fierceness) and in their deathly panrtLittle chairless restaurants abound *

where the poor folk stood or sat the doorsteps to eat their leisured W conversational lunches attract!*

messes, which we longed to taste, b«t from which we held back in a craven fear of typhoid or other infection* Not least of the city’s charms are its wealth of tine odours and its lack of stenches. The odours are of spices, cinnamon, and flowering trees, all blent together in a heady compound. The lack of stenches is due to anxious sanitation, and surely to an inborn cleanliness of the people. We rode through a sweltering noon, the shade temperature at 9S degrees, in a tramcar crowded with natives: and our nostrils were completely unoffended. In the bazaar, at odd moments, came a surprising whiff or so, but this i seemed rather “different” than disagreeable. It is a sort of agony to embark again after so short a time, leaving unseen all the splendid interior of the island —Kandy. Anuradhapura, Polonnoruwa. and the rest. At least, one may advise anyone who travels via ; Suez to break his Journey at Colomlw* —especially between the latter part of November and the middle of March. From June to September It rains, but is often enjoyable. October and earlier November are too wet, April and May too hot. for much travel and sight-seeing. But the climate is never dangerous, even at ’’off” seasons, for people who take reasonable care of themselves and much of the high country, inland, has positively healthgiving qualities And one need not be offensively rich. Decent hotel accommodation may be had for Rs. r.OO m month, inclusive ithe rupee beincr worth about eighteenpence t. A seven days* motor tour. Including hotels and all else except gratuities, costs Rs. 28H —which seems a not-excessive sum. as travelling expenses go. and considering Ceylon’s rewards of interest and loveliness and grandeur.