. I shall permit you to describe the flowers after
you have seen them; but the vegetation generally of the island is
exceedingly luxuriant. In regard to animals, the tiger does not reside in
Ceylon. The elephant, generally without any tusks, is the chief ruler in
the forests here. The bear and the leopard are found. There is no end of
monkeys. There are sixteen kinds of bats here, and all your base-ball clubs
could be supplied from the stock; and there is a flying fox, which might
amuse you if you could catch one. He is a sort of bat; and the more of them
you shoot, the better the farmer will be pleased, for they feed on his
fruit. Plenty of birds of all sorts are found in the island. The crocodile
is the biggest reptile found in Ceylon."
"But the snakes, your lordship?" suggested Felix.
"There are a few poisonous snakes; and the two worst are the cobra and the
ticpolonga, the latter a sort of viper; and the former is an old friend of
yours, Mr. McGavonty. The people are called Singhalese, but more generally
Cingalese, and are believed to be the descendants of immigrants from the
region of the Ganges. There are other races here, as the Malabars. The
religion of Ceylon is the Buddhist, and it has a very strong hold upon the
natives here as well as in Burma.
"Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, is said to have visited Ceylon three
times, and to have preached his doctrines here.
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