Item 110 - Letter from R. C. Trevelyan to Sir George Trevelyan

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Anuradhapura, Ceylon [Sri Lanka]. - Glad to have had three quiet days here after recent 'rushing about'. Will go to Kandy for four or five days tomorrow; they leave Colombo for Batavia on 15 or 16 February. [Goldsworthy Lowes] Dickinson is staying for a couple of nights with an old friend between here and Kandy. Describes the ruins here, and sketches the dagobas [brick stupas] which are 'very ugly' in his opinion; the sculpture is 'conventional, and evidently made to order' but there are two reliefs of an elephant and man cut into a rock which he finds 'fine as can be'. Thinks Indian art 'disappointing on the whole', but when it does 'come off' as here, it rivals anything he has seen elsewhere. Ceylon is 'more beautiful than most of India', though they did like Travancore very much. They stayed there as 'state guests', though they only met the Maharajah, 'an amiable, conscientious, unhealthy-looking man', briefly. Mentions the night they spent at Cape Comorin, a trip into the jungle, and a 'fascinating journey by houseboat' from Trivandrum to Quilon. Travancore seems in many ways 'the best-governed native state in India', with the people 'more prosperous and better educated' than elsewhere, though they benefit from nature being 'bountiful' there. Much enjoyed their days in camp with Mr [ James Perch] Bedford, collector of Salem, before going to Travancore; their visits to Trichinopoly, Tanjore and Madura were interesting but 'very tiring'. Is glad to have good news from Bessie and his parents. Julian will have been at home for some time now; expects Sir George and Caroline will be at Welcombe. Hopes to be back in May to go to the Lake Hunt; will probably not go to Japan, but start home from Pekin [Beijing] towards the end of April. By then he will have 'seen as much of the world as [he] can reasonably want to see at one time' and will be ready to return.

Finishes the letter next day in the botanical gardens at Kandy, under a 'clump of giant bamboos' and next to a river in which he intends to bathe soon. His father would like Kandy. Has not yet seen Buddha's tooth, which they say is really a crocodile's. There were many crocodiles in the big tanks at Anuradhpura, which he did not know until he had bathed there; they saw one. There are none here in the hills. Expects he will write next from Singapore or Batavia.