National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

Aquarell by Hermann de Schlagintweít, May 1857. LEIPZIG: F.A.Brockhaus. LONDON: Trübner & Co. The Copyright is reserved. Lithographed by Schaber, printed in 61 colours by Lemercier Paris.

In Ceylon a low latitude, combined with the uniformity of a truly maritime climate, contributes to give the vegetation of the island an altogether tropical character. Extensive groves of palms, like those in the foreground, are numerous in almost every part of the island. The isolated palm tree, rising out of the barren clayey soil is a chamærops, that with the high and narrow crown in the distance, a betel (areca), and the one next to the hut, a cocoa palm. The most usual leaf trees in this neighbourhood are the breadfruit (artocarpus) and nutmeg trees (myristica). The house in the background is built of bricks with a tile roof, the entrance leading between grotesque circular ornaments, and two parallel lateral walls enclosing the compound, though the more general form of Singhalese houses appears in the one half occupying the centre of the view. Under the shade of the trees may be seen a wooden frame work where it conformably with Buddhistic benevolent practice which is prevalent in Ceylon, as well as in Siam water is supplied for the use of the traveller. Wells, however, are here very numerous, water being found at only on foot and a half below the surface.