The Daily Alaska empire., 1936-01-18

nuts of others scented and spicy souvenirs of interesting visit
 Randy lies in a beautiful valley encrcled by hills covered with wealth of bamboo and tropical foliage. Approaching there. the skyline the winding drive along the Kelani river looms impressive with towering odd-shaped peaks of the central mountain range of Ceylon Castle Rock is particularly dominant Lion Rock and Adams Peak also are to be At the top of this peak is huge footprint in the rock which Hindus claim the footstep of Siva their god which the Buddhists claim is the footstep of their own Buddha visit to Ceylon, and which Mohamme dans and the Portuguese say the footstep of Adam Hundreds of pilgrims of all faiths climb the peak annually to pay their homage to it.
 In Randy, a busy city of some forty thousand people many modern English hotels, all catering to find cool dry spot in the terrific summer season of Colombo and other owland places The chief at traction however is the Temple of the Tooth, Bud- dhis shrine where priceless relic is maintained in the shape of fragment of canine tooth of Buddha him. self It supposed to have been rescued from his funeral pyre twenty-five hundred years ago. and despite accounts of it's having been destroyed by the Portuguese in 1860, the temple at Randy is believed to have been it's repository for over three hundred years. We cimbd the stone stairway to the temple each step infested with beggar, and walked around the barred and decorated vault wherein the relic is kept in safety It is only exhibited year at great religious festival held during August In the church ritual and in the pageanry of these occasions of pomp, the elephant has a large part. Elephant Buddhas seen in of the temples elephant decorations in the stone and the tile work in the friezes and in bas-reliefs. The elephant is the city to nearby river to the bathing of the temples sacred elephants Senator Burton K Wheeler of Montana; and Senator Reynolds of North Carolina, members of the party had their pictures astrde the big pachyderms.
 Ceyon is 27O miles long and it's maximum width is l4O miles It has of 25332 square miles, about half as big Michigan nearly in area of the state of West Virginia with a population of over 5OOO000 people It has export trade of nearly two hundred and fifty million rupees the equivalent in our currency, of something over sixty-five million dollars. Of this 40 million dollars is represented by the tea production; fifteen million by rubber produc tion and ten million by oil copra spices and precious stones
 For although the export of gems and semi-precious stones represented by less than $6O0O00 annually tourist knows Colombo the city of gems. Every where Hindu hawkers with their packets of stones of star sapphires rubies garnets moonstones, opaS zircons aquamarines-selling them wherever and to whenever they can In temples, in hotels, the streets, they pedde their wares Marlew Pew, editor of Editor and Publisher, newspapermans trade jour- nal of Nv York, member of our party. ap- preached by gem salesman. The special offering pair of white sapphires perhaps zircons or maybe just finely cut piece of glass The first price was twenty five rupees for the pair he got them for one rupee less than forty cents for the two of them Now he doesn't know whether he stung after all The gem merchants, in finely appointed lavishly sumptuous salesrooms do land office business when tourist ship lands. Gems running into the tens of the thousands of dollars often sold to wealthy travellers.
 The chief racial component of the population of the island the Singhalese, comprising about three and half million out of the approximately five million people inhabtng the island The Singhalese are de- scendants of the snghs and of Aryan stock now can be distinguished by their very black color and their shaven heads while the Singhalese wear their hair long and men have sort of Psyche knot at the back of the head We men frequently combing their long hair, as vain-appearng any woman ever was The language used by most of the Singhalese in the islands is something akin to Sanskrit.
 our ship took on quantity of rubber for American manufacturers, the revival of the automobile trade back home accounting for impetus to the rubber plantations here in Malaga Our incidental cargo included some fifty tons of cashew nuts, to be put up in five cent packages and retailed in the East
 We're glad to be our way and the Captain asks us to the bridge to the lights of Colombo fade away we pass out beyond the twin breakwaters and head for the southern tip of India enroute for Bombay, our next stop where we are due three days hence.