The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1878-10-07
Strangely BethrotPed.

"Going out, Ellen, are you2" said my
father, as he tightened the reign of his
sturdy hill. pony. well, well, my dear,
| have to face the heat, too, and shall
envy you the shade of your faVorite
trees, beside the big tank That Mala-
bar headman Ispoke of, who has just
brought over a gang of fresh coolies
from the mainland, 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
tiffin time, hope"
And, with kindly nod and smile, he
rode off at brisk trot; his horsekeeper,
a 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
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 over-cropping and
neglect, no longer yielded it's 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 maintenance, and
little more.
l was an only child, and my father
was a widower, SO that our actual ne
cessities, in that cheap and frugal coun-
try, We're easily provided for; nor should
l have had care in the world, save for
the old, old story of love, the course of
which hard circumstances would not suf-
fer to run smooth. Our nearest neigh
bor-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 I
We're plighted lovers, but the very idea
of an engagement between his only son
and the daughter of his embarrassed
neighbor was gall and wormwood to
Oswald's father, proud, strong-willed
man, who managed his thriving property,
50 as to extract from every beegah of
arabic land it's 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 con-
currence, 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 word con-
cerning the Tank itself, the name of
which, | fear, conveys to European
readers but very inadequate concep-
ton 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 largest
of the artificial lakes ever planned by
mortal engineer. More than two thou
sand 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 home, had beer
from childhood familiar, and | dearly
t loved the mirror-like expanse of its calm
5 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 sur
face. 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 tlamingo to tn,
tiny oriole OF tho towering adjutant
$ haunted it; and all around grew in dens'
profusion the mighty trees and flower.
ing creepers of the virgin forest, whence
! came at times the complaining cry of th'
mountain cat, the belling of the deer
the panther's snarl or the crashing O.
j the cane and sapling, as wild elephant
: forced their way through the trackles
recesses of the jungle.
lam bound to admit that there wer