The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1876-10-19
STRANGELY BETROTHED.

"Going out, Ellen, are you?" said
my father, rs he tjghtened the rein of
his sturdy hill pony. "Well, well, my
shall envy You the shade of your favor
ite trees beside the big tank. The Nal
abar head-man / spoke Of, who has just
brought over a gang Of fresh coolies
from the main land, has promised TO
meet me in front of the joss-house, in
the Nal Tantee village, to see if we can
come to terms. / shall be back before
tiifin-time, hope"
And with a kindly nod and smile, be
rode off at brisk trot; his horse-keep-
er, a barefooled Cingalese lad, easily
keeping pace with the pony, and run
ming swift and silent, like a 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 Ccylon. Our once famous plantation,
called 1ravers after the family that had
possessed it for two generations, was
not now the source of profit that in my
grandfather's time it had been. The
rich soil, worn out by overcropping
and neglect, no longer yielded its heavy
harvest of red-broWn berries, while to
reclaim fresh land from the jungle was
both toilsome and costly. The estate
gave US the means Of a maintenance,
and little more.
was an only child, and my father
was q widower, so that our actual ne
cessities in that cheap and frugal
country were easily provided for; nor
should have had a 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 neigh
bors with white faces and English
speaking tongues were scarce in North
ern Ceylon-was Mr.. Forster, a plant
er, by far weather than we were.
Now Oswald Forster and / were plight
ed lovers, but the very idea of an en-
gagement between his only son ana the
daughter of his embarrassed neighbor
was gall and wormwoOd to OSwald's
father-a proud, stroDg-willed man,
who managed his thriving property so
as to extract from every beegah of
arabic land its utmost yield in silver
rupees.
DESTROYS to efface from Oswald's
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 for
eign travel and change would soon OBJ
ljterate from his memory the image of
the lonely little girl beside the great
Tank of Minary. And now q word
concerning the Tank itself, the name of
which, fear, conveys to European read
ers but a very inadequate conception of
the stupendous reality. The Tank
of Minary, justly reckoned among
the marvels which the island of Ceylon
has still TO show, is perhaps the grand
est of the artificial lakes ever planned
by mortal engineer. More than two
thousand years have passed since, be-
fore the Christian era, a Buddhist King
bade his subjects toll to erect the mas
sive walls of hewn stone and tough
chunam that environ that vast sheet of
water, 25 miles in circumference.
With the Minary Lake, or Tank,
which lay close to my own home, l had
been from childhood familiar, and |
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
a res of the surface. Strange fish of
brilliant colors glided in glittering
shoals through the deep, clear water,
rarely disturbed by prov or paddle /;
bright birds of every size, from the
scarlet famingo to the tiny oriole or
the towering adiutant, haunted it; and
all around grew in dense profusion the
mighty trees and Towering creepers of
the virgin forest, whence came at times
the complaining cry of the mountain
cat, the bellinS of the deer, the pam
theirs snarl, or the crashing of cane
and sapling, as wild elephants forced
their way through the trackless recesses
of the Jungle.
/ am bound to admit that there were
other tenants of lake and forest less at
tractive than the bright -plumaged birds
and the pretty little lizards basking in
the patches of yellow sunshine. ALI
gators were very common, snakes plen-
tiful, and the escorpion, the centipede,
and the tree leech were often TO be met
with in the more swampy and tangled
tracts of the woodlands. But we who
were colonial born learn a disregard of
the creeping things that surround US
which astonishes a new arrival from
Europe, though, unlike most natives, l
had always had a shrinking fear of the
reptile tribe.
watched my fathers retiring figure
until it disappeared amidst the feathery
bamboos that lined the path, and then,
turning my back on the white house
with It's green verandas, walked on,
under the shadow of the great forest
trees, till / reached the enlbankment
of the Minary Tank. Half an hours
walking brought me TO within sight OF
a ruinous summer-house, built on the
edge of the lake by some former Dutch
proprietor, and yet surmounted by Q
large ball of gilded pith perched on q
pole. Near this summer-house it was