Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III OUR DAY OUT Three Grecian cities strove for Homer dead Where Homer living begged his daily bread. And the locale of the Garden of Eden is claimed by at least three of the Eastern islands that we have visited. The island of Penang appealed the most seductively to my credulity ; but before I saw Penang, I was convinced that Ceylon was in reality the site of the Garden of Eden. Colombo impressed me ; Mount Lavinia convinced me. Mount Lavinia is the Richmond of Colombo. The Mount Lavinia Hotel is the Star and Garter of Ceylon. But 'Any and 'Arriet never go there. The demi-monde never goes there. The world and his wife don't flock there. The European population of Colombo is so limited that it does not embrace either 'Arry or 'Arriet— it has no demi-monde, at least no palpable one; and the world and his wife are not numerous enough to flock. Mount Lavinia is a Paradise d deux. Nature is superlatively beautiful there. At the hotel there is an ideal chef. For years we have had a habit of periodically escaping from every one and everything. Our life has been a busy one; it has been full of friction ; but when the frictionhas threatened to make us forget each other a bit, we have usually managed to shake the dust of the high road from our tired feet, and to snatch a quiet breathing spell, alone, and together. The second Sunday we were in Colombo we were up very early,—we were going to Mount Lavinia for the day. When we left the hotel the sun was just rising. I had a new frock on, and my husband was good enough to say that it was pretty. I tore it badly getting into the gharri, but it didn't matter—he found a pin and pinned it for me. We had a long wait at the little station. We stood outside, and tried to guess which of the hieroglyphics painted in black on t...