harness, and wearing major and minor League uniforms, respectively. That all of them who may see these pages will distinctly recall that strange and never-to-be-forgotten crowd at the Columbo ball game, I am certain. We had left Melbourne two weeks before, on the good ship Salier, and after a delightful voyage across the Indian Ocean, had sighted the shores of Ceylon, and dropped anchor in the harbor of Columbo. As the Salier was not to sail until the following evening (it was just past noon when we dropped anchor) we had the balance of the day to ourselves, and lost no time in getting ashore to our headquarters, the Grand Oriental Hotel, which stands but a stone's throw from the quay, and which is, without question, the best appointed hostelry south of Cairo. It is always good to step upon dry land at the end of a long sea voyage, and when that land is beautiful Ceylon with its groves of cocoanut, banana and plaintain trees, fringing the shore. almost to the very sands of the beach; its flocks of brilliant plumaged paroquets and troops of chattering, agilelimbed monkeys; its white-walled buildings; its scent of nutmeg and cinnamon, and its dusky-skinned, gaily-robed groups of Cingalese, the traveler is not only gratified at reaching terra firma again, but is charmed, interested and refreshed by the very strangeness and beauty of his surroundings. Back, far back from the shore, arise the hills whose fertile sides yield an annual revenue of thousands of pounds to the Cingalese coffee planters, the blue atmosphere about them being so clear that one requires no glass to discern the well-kept grounds surrounding the white-walled villas wherein dwell the coffee kings of one of the most wonderfully productive islands of the equatorial regions. While modern in its appointments, so far as they are calculated to insure the comfort and convenience of its American and European guests, the Grand Oriental Hotel is, in its arrangement and equipment, essentially Oriental in character. Heavily tapestried punkas extend from end to end of the great dining hall over each table, and these are gently swayed to and fro by gilded cords in the hands of Cingalese servants; the odor of curries and rich flavors reach the nostrils, even before taking one's seat at the table; great palms and giant ferns lift their graceful leaves almost to the tops of the imposing pillars through which one enters the dining room from the rotunda. From the gallery above, one may, while reclining upon a bamboo. couch liberally provided with soft plush cushions, sip an after dinner coffee and enjoy a cigarette, while the music of a stringed orchestra soothes the senses and inclines one to almost envy a people who thus enjoy an existence so utterly at variance with anything to which we of the new world are accustomed. During the afternoon our entire party had visited a Cingalese haberdashery and discarded our American costumes for the decidedly more comfortable outfit of the Indian traveler-trousers and coats of white duck, a silk shirt, a broad red or yellow sash of Japanese silk, and a cork helmet, the green lining of which softened the intense glare of the tropical sun. A ride through the streets and environs of Columbo, a visit to the shops, where numerous articles of Indian handiwork in tapestries and bric-a-brac were purchased; the enjoyment of an exhibition by a group of Indian jugglers and snake charmers; and the distribution of half a dozen pockets full of coppers to the horde of beggars that impede the progress of the visitor in each and every one of the streets of Columbo, consumed the afternoon. After supper the irrepressible Fogarty got up a jinrickshaw race, with the start and finish in front of the hotel. That is, a dozen of us picked out "jins," with an eye to the muscular development, breadth of chest, and length of limb of the black fellows who pulled them, and taking our seats in the little carts, urged our "steeds" to their utmost. It was good sport, and no one seemed to enjoy it more than did the jinrickshaw men themselves, as urged on by our shouts and promises of additional remuneration, they flew over the smooth roadway until their black skins glistened with perspiration, and the little vehicles rocked from side to side and fairly danced under the unusual strain to which they were being put. After the "jin race we turned them to more sober and digni ened by the announcement that two picked teams of American ball players would give an exhibition of their national game, may readily be understood. As to what interest the Cingalese and the British soldiers "NOW AND THEN WE PASSED A CINGALESE BEAUTY IN HER JINRICKSHAW. fied use for a drive along the beach, and through the extensive cocoanut groves that line the shores for miles. As the game scheduled for Columbo was to take place next day, we retired before midnight. We had been fortunate in reaching Ceylon as we did, for the following day was the date set for her annual athletic and horse racing events, in honor of which all Columbo was to enjoy a holiday. The games and races are held on the Galle Face, a magnificent stretch of greensward adjoining the barracks and military quarters of the British troops in Ceylon. As these troops are composed principally of Irish, Scotch and English soldiers, there was no lack of athletic talent, and as not a few of the officers were men of means, neither was there any dearth of thoroughbred horse flesh for the races. On the day of our arrival, therefore, the people of Columbo were on the qui vive for the events of the morrow, and that interest had been height would take in the game, we knew nothing, but we were assured of no end of enthusiasm from the officers and crew of the United States corvette Essex, and a Philadelphia merchantman that lay in the harbor. Our entire party had been entertained aboard the Essex during the afternoon, and half a score of the ship's officers who knew many of the players personally, and all of them by reputation, had spent the evening with us at the hotel, shared in our jinrickshaw races, and finally bid us good night with a promise to some good old-fashioned "rooting" for their respective favorites on the following day. The day of the game dawned beautifully clear and bright, and I rather imagine that I was the first member of our party to see the sun that morning, for a big, leaden hued, black-collared Indian raven had entered my room through the casement, and had awakened ne by the clatter of his toe nails as he hopped across the floor, seized my watchchain, which hung from my vest on the foot of the bed, and started for the window with my property. I promptly shied a shoe at him, upon which he dropped the waistcoat and shrieked out his opinion of such inhospitable treatment before taking his departure. I saw him a moment later, perched upon the back of a sleepy looking little bullock standing in the courtyard below, and busily pluming his ruffled feathers. games were not to commence until one, the populace of Columbo had begun to turn its steps toward the Galle Face. By noon the officers and as many of the crew of the Essex as could obtain shore leave, likewise those of the Philadelphia merchantmen, gave our boys a rousing cheer as they came out upon the hotel balcony, a fine looking lot of fellows in the gray and black of the Chicagos, and the white and blue of the AllAmericas. Luncheon was hastily It was, indeed, a beautiful day for partaken of, for we were all anxious a game. So clear was the air that as I looked through the caseinent and out upon the quay, I could see for miles and miles across the blue waters of the Indian Ocean. Already the streets were astir with the visitors who had come into town from the outlying districts, determined not to miss a single moment of the festivities, so I lost no time in donning my clothes and descending to the rotunda, where half an hour later the rest of our party had assembled. By eleven o'clock, although the to get out to the games, and the teams were eager to loosen up their muscles with a bit of practice batting and base running. By one we were in our carry-alls and jinrickshaws, and under way for the grounds, and such a procession to a ball park I have seen equalled only once since, that being when the same teams rode upon camels and donkeys from Cairo to the Pyramids, for a game upon the desert of Sahara. This Columbo crowd, however, was even more picturesque and amazing in its make up. As far as the eye could see, the main thoroughfare of the city was a moving mass of white-robed, blackskinned Cingalese, and white-suited, white-helmeted Englishmen, Americans and Europeans, the only break in this combination of black and white being the red sashes of the foreigners, and the blue and gold of the Essex sailors, with here and there the flash of a parasol or bright colored ribbon, indicating the presence of the wives and sisters of the European residents. There were jinrickshaws without number; there were thatched carts as big as a New York moving van, drawn by two, and in some instances one, little bullocks, not larger than a yearling calf. Alongside of our party rode two old Turks on burrows fitted with hugh saddles and tinkling bells, while before us, behind us, and all about us, were the nodding sun-shades of hundreds of natives, in their swathed skirts and white shoulder wraps, their long black hair held in a mass at the back of their heads by immense tortoiseshell combs. Α short distance from the hotel, we encountered a procession of Hindus engaged in the celebration of one of their religious festivals. Half a dozen great elephants with gilded pagodas and varicolored trappings marched solemnly along, flanked on each side by lines of priests carrying aloft great plumes of colored feathers, and preceded by a dozen symbal players, whose music was as weird as that of a Java village on execution day. Now and then we passed a Cingalese beauty in her jinrickshaw, her equipage drawn up by the roadside until the noisy crowd should have passed; and as we proceeded further on our route, the great leaves of the banana and the bending trunks of the cocoanut trees formed a trop ical canopy over our heads such as no American ball player had ever before passed under upon his way to a ball park. From one of these avenues, we emerged upon the broad roadway that terminated upon the beautiful grounds of the English military post, and beyond them we could see the big crowd that had gathered for the day's sport. The open sea washed the pebbly beach that on one side skirted the broad expanse of greensward, and on the other great groves of cocoanut trees reared their stately heads, making an admirable background for a ball field. The accompanying illustrations will, however, give a much better idea of the scene that presented itself to us that afternoon, than any pen could possibly give. A more brilliant array of color, as Highlander, Celt and Briton, American, European and Cingalese mingled together upon that great expanse of green, was bewildering indeed. The grounds had been admirably laid off for the athletic games and the racing events, while the ball field set aside for the Americans was as pretty a stretch of lawn as ever any player batted a ball or stole a base over. From the club house balconies, from carts, carriages and jinrickshaws, men and women of a dozen nationalities, in their national costumes, watched and applauded, or chatted, in their native tongues, with their friends and escorts, as they listened to the music of the post band, the bagpipes of the Highlanders, the cymbals of the Cingalese, or the mandolins and guitars of a band of Italians. The athletic games were well contested and interesting, the hammer throwing, shot putting, pole vaulting, running, walking and high and broad |