moans. The representative doctor then stepped
in, and brought such remedies as he could apply.

At that moment the express, a hundred and
twenty miles away, was rolling into London.
It was a cold morning. The colder grey was
breaking. For the last hour, under the pleasant
encouragement of the major, Fermor had ceased
to look back, and was beginning to look forward
to a gay and brilliant future. The little fibres
whose parting had caused him a little pain, were
joining again fast. They had even had some
snatches of sleep.

"They have had a merry night of it," said
the major, as they went to claim their luggage;
"much more so than we poor travellers! Eh?
And our friend Hanbury has not made good use
of his time—eh?"

OPENINGS IN CEYLON.

IT is perhaps to be feared that the gorgeous
pictures of the scenery of the island of Ceylon, and
the descriptions of its animate and inanimate life,
which able writers have from time to time given
to the world, may have, in some instances, so
captivated the minds of the young and imaginative,
as to induce them to seek their fortunes
here without due consideration.

Lovely as the scenery of the island
unquestionably is, and enjoyable as its climate may be
in the mountain regions at certain seasons of the
year, it must be remembered that every landscape
has its shady as well as its sunny side. If these
mountain regions have their bursts of golden
sunshine, they have also their days and weeks
of depressing gloom. If to travel through
the forest glades be delightful in the fresh early
morning, when the dew sparkles on the leaf and
studs the spiders' web with diamonds, and when
the air is vocal with choral symphonies, and the
deer feeds by the lake-side, and the peacock
displays his hundred-eyed plumage to the rising sun,
and the red-beaked ring-necked parrots flash their
green wings in the light as they wheel, screaming
with ecstasy, through the air—there is also
the sultry noontide, when panting nature's voice
is hushed, and the leaf droops wearily from the
stalk, and the birds and beasts seek the deepest
recesses of the wood, and the sun glares
mercilessly on the burning brain. If it be pleasant at
eventide to ride up to the tents picturesquely
pitched beside the ruined tank, and to find a
table spread in the wilderness, and the comforts
of civilised life in the remote jungle, and the
subservient headman of the neighbouring hamlet
bowing a welcome, while the coolies light their
fires and prepare their evening meal—and to
watch the broad moon rising over the smooth
water, and to bear through the still air the
elephant's trumpet, and the elk's bark, and the
jackal's wild cry, and the wader's shrill scream—
it must also be remembered that while the official
of high standing can command the comforts and
appliances which, for a few weeks at a time,
make this kind of life enjoyable, the poor ill-
paid surveyor or road-maker who has to live in
the jungle for months together, would probably
have to sleep under a few talipot-leaves after a
very frugal meal and a very hard day's work.

It may be assumed that nine young men out
of ten who leave England for Ceylon, imagine
that if in five years they have not made their
fortune, still they will have got so far on their
way towards that consummation, that they will
be in a position to visit their native land, spend
a couple of years there in comfort, marry the
girl they have left behind them (every boy who
goes abroad does leave a girl behind him, and
frequently to such purpose that he hears no more
of her in six months), and so, after a few more
years, leave Ceylon for good, and retire in the
prime of life in affluence, if not a millionnaire.

Now, there is a personage I know very well,
close to me while I write, who came to Ceylon
with just such thoughts in his head, nineteen
years ago, and he has never been able to afford
to leave the East since, though he has led a
sober, steady, frugal life. He has seen others,
it is true, do better, but he has also seen others
do worse; those who speak as if things came by
chance may say that he drew a blank, but are
you sure, intending adventurer, that you will
secure a prize? and are there really many prizes
to secure?

I assume that in coming to Ceylon you have
either some friends there or some prospect of
obtaining employment, and I now ask, what are
you going to do when you get there?

There are only three kinds of employment
suitable for a European:—1. The civil or
government service. 2. A mercantile or planting
life. 3. The bar. Let us look at each in turn.

The Ceylon civil service is, in a sense, the
governing body of the island. A man enters it
as a writer; he advances step by step to be a
magistrate, a district judge, a government agent,
till, if he lives long enough and draws a prize,
he becomes a member of council, perhaps
colonial secretary, and by the remotest possibility
—just as much as there is, my reader, of your
becoming Archbishop of Canterbury if a clergyman,
or Lord Chancellor if a lawyer, or
Commander-in-Chief if a soldier, or Lord High
Admiral if a sailor—he may become governor.
As a writer he will at first draw two hundred
pounds a year, as colonial secretary two thousand
five hundred pounds a year. The salaries vary
between these two sums. Should his health fail,
he will be allowed to retire on a pension
proportionate to his standing and services. If he travel
on duty, he draws a travelling allowance, and
that is almost the only allowance any one draws.
All this may sound very pleasant, and unquestionably
it is very pleasant for a young man to step,
on the very threshold of his career, into an office
of authority and responsibility, to be a
magistrate at twenty-one with jurisdiction over some
fifty thousand people, or to be the assistant
agent at thirty of a district with a hundred
and fifty thousand people, with roads to make,
tanks to repair, resources to develop, grievances
to redress. But then, as I said belore, there is
another side to the question.