In journeying through a desert the eye of the traveller lingers with interest and pleasure upon the oasis he has left, and which he is not again likely to revisit; and so, in the life of every man, there is probably some period of shorter or longer duration on which the memory, in subsequent years, delights to dwell. Of such a character to the author was his residence in Ceylon. During four years he lived in that interesting island as a coffee-planter and the editor of a newspaper, and those four years were so filled with incident, with employment, with variety and adventure, that despite the pecuniary losses sustained in a ruinous speculation, they have ever since afforded him ample and pleasing themes for reflection. In the following pages it has been his aim to give an interesting, and at the same time, a truthful picture of jungle life–such a picture as may bring it before the mind of the European reader without exaggeration or false glitter. The scenes described and the incidents recorded are such as every resident in the east will acknowledge to be common and usual to a life spent in the recesses of an oriental forest. In such a life, scenery, inhabitants, costume, and characteristics are so different from those to which the novice has been accustomed in his European home, that they have for him at first all the effect of enchantment. It was the author’s lot to return from the east before this fresh feeling of pleased surprise had been quite removed–before the novel charm of oriental life had worn, off, to give place to satiety and monotony.
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