The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1876-10-13
STRANGELY BETROTHED.

"Going out, Ellen, are you 2" said my
father, as he frightened the rein of his
sturdy hill-pony. Well, well, my
dear, I have to face the heat, too, and
shall envy you the shade of your favorite
trees, beside the big tank. That Mala-
bar headman spoke of, who has just
brought over gang of fresh coolies from
the mainland, has promised to meet me
in front of the ioss-house in the Nal
Tantee village, to see if we can come to
terms. Ishal be back be tiffin time,
hope"
And, with kindly nod and smile, he
rode off at brisk trot his rsekeeper,
q barefooted Cingalese lad, easily keep
ing pace with the pony, and running
swift and silent, like brown shadow,
beside his masters stirrup. Times had
changed, and for the worse, since Mr..
Travers had been reckoned among the
most thriving coffee planters in Ceylon.
Our once-famous plantation, called
Travers after the family that had pos
sessed Il for two generations, was not
now the source of profit that, in my
grandfather's time, it had been. The
mch soil, worn out by over cropping and
neglect, no longer yielded its heavy har-
vest of red-brown berries while to re-
claim fresh land from the jungle was
both toilsome and costly. The estate
gave us the means of maintenance, and
little more.
II was an only child, and my father was
q widower, 80 that our actual necessi-
ties, in that cheap and frugal country,
were easily provided for nor should 1
have had care in the world, save for
the old, old story of love, the course of
which hard circumstances would not
suffer to run smooth. Our nearest
neighbor-and Christian neighbors, with
white faces and English-speaking
tongues, were scarce in Northern Ceylon
was Mr.. Forster, planter, by far
wealthier than we were. Now Oswald
Forster and we're pighted lovers, but
the very idea of an engagement between
his only son and the daughter of his en-
barrassed neighbor was gall and worm
wood to Oswald's father, proud,
strong willed man, who managed his
thriving property so as to extract from
every beegah of arabic land its utmost
yield of silver rupees.
DESTROYS to efface from Oswald g mind
the idea of marrying poor little Ellen
Travers, Mr.. Forster, with his wife's
concurrence, proposed to send his son to
Europe, confident that foreign travel
and change of scene would soon obliter-
ate from his memory the image of the
lonely little girl beside the great Tank
of Minary. And now a word concern
ing the Tank itself, the name of which, /
fear, conveys to European readers but a
very inadequate conception of the stu
pendous reality. The Tank of Minary,
Justly reckoned among the marvels
which the island of Ceylon has still to
show, is perhaps the largest of the arti-
fetal lakes ever planned by mortal en-
gineer. More than two thousand years
have passed since, before the Christian
era, Buddhist king bade his subjects
toll to erect the massive walls of hewn
stone and tough chunam, that environ
that vast sheet of water, twenty-five
miles in circumference.
With the Minary Lake, or Tank, which
lay close to my own house, L had been
from childhood, familiar; and l dearly
loved the mirror like expanse Of its
calm waters, studded with floating
islands of the crimson -blossomed lotus
of India, the red flowers and green
leaves of which covered many thousand
acres of the surface. Strange fish, oi
brilliant colors, glided in glitterine
shoals through the deep, clear water
rarely disturbed by prov or paddle
bright birds, of every size, from the
scarlet fiamingo to the tiny oriole or the
towering adjutant, haunted it; and al
around grew in dense profusion tht
mighty trees and towering creepers o
the virgin forest, whence came at times
the complaining cry of the mountain cat
the belling of the deer, the panther
snarl, or the crashing of the cane ant
sapling, as wild elephants forced thei
way through the trackless recesses o
the jungle.
/ am bound to admit that there wer'
other tenants of lake and forest less at
tractive than the bright-plumaged birds
and the pretty little lizards basking il
the patches of yellow sunshine. Alliga
tors were very common, snakes plenti
full, and the scorpion, the centipede anC
the tree leech were often to be met will
in the more swampy and tangled track
of the woodland. But we, who wer,
colonial-born, learn disregard of tn,
creeping things that surround us, whicl
astonishes new arrival from Europe
and / had never in my life known wha
il was to feel real fear of beast OF rep
dle.
watched my fathers retiring figur
until it disappeared amid the feather,
bamboos that lined the path, and then
turning my back on the white hous
with its green verandahs, walked on
under the shadow of the great fores
trees, till reached the embankment o
the Minary Tank. Half an hours walk
ing brought me to within sight of ruin