A sudden change necessarily induces a comparison, and I imagine
there are few who have dwelt much among the Tropics who do not
acquire a distaste for the English climate, and look back with
lingering hopes to the verdant shores they have left so far
behind. The recollection of absent years, which seem to have
been the summer of life, makes the chill of the present feel
doubly cold, and our thoughts still cling to the past, while we
strive against the belief that we never can recall those days
again.
How, as my thoughts wander back to former scenes every mountain
and valley reappears in the magic glass of memory! Every rock and
dell, every old twisted stem, every dark ravine and wooded cliff,
the distant outlines of the well-known hills, the jungle-paths
known to my eye alone, and the far, still spots where I have
often sat in solitude and pondered over the events of life, and
conjured up the faces of those so far away, doubtful if we should
ever meet again. Thus even now I picture to myself the past; and
so vivid is the scene that I can almost hear the fancied roar of
the old waterfalls, and see the shadowy tints which the evening
sun throws upon the tree-tops. My old home rises before me like
a dissolving view, and I can see the very spot where it was my
delight to live, where a warm welcome awaited every friend. And
lastly, the faces of those friends seem clear before me, and
bring back the associations of old times. Those who have shared
in common many of these scenes I trust to meet again, and look
back upon the events of former days as landscapes on the road of
life that we have viewed together.
For me Ceylon has always had a charm, and I shall ever retain a
vivid interest in the colony.
I trust that a new and more prosperous era has now commenced, and
that Ceylon, having shaken off the incubus of mismanagement, may,
under the rule of a vigorous and enterprising governor, arrive at
that prosperity to which she is entitled by her capabilities.
The governor recently appointed (Sir H. Ward,) has a task before
him which his well-known energy will doubtless enable him to
perform.
End of Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon by Samuel White Baker
