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Through a carriage window with Cave
Book review
Ceylon along the Rail Track by Henry W. Cave. Reviewed by Richard Boyle
A Visidena publication
When 18-year-old Henry William Cave came out to Ceylon from England in 1872 as secretary to the controversial Anglican Archbishop of Colombo, Reginald Copple-ston, he no doubt had commercial ambitions like many of his fellow colonists. Unlike the majority who believed their fortune lay in the plantation industry, however, Cave had a literary bent. So it was that with the encouragement of Coppleston, Cave established a bookstore in 1876 on Upper Chatham Street, the swift success of which was probably due in large measure to the profligacy of planters, who had a habit of buying books in bulk and often leaving them unread on the shelf.

Cave obviously possessed considerable business acumen. He diversified H. W. Cave & Co. by stocking musical instruments - another prerequisite for entertainment-starved planters, especially if they had families - set up one of the most modern printing presses in the subcontinent, became a sought after commercial photographer, and then a publisher with meticulous standards. The firm even boasted a sporting goods department, where, it is noted in that invaluable source, Twentieth Century Impressions of Ceylon, "Rickshaws, billiard-tables, Singer and Allday's bicycles, and appliances for every sort of game and pastime are to be found." Furthermore, Cave demonstrated common sense by taking the time-honoured step of inviting trusty relatives - two brothers and a nephew in his case - to help with the expansion, and eventually the management, of the firm.

As Ismeth Raheem and the late Percy Colin-Thome write in their biographical note on Cave contained in Images of British Ceylon, "It was during this period (the early 1880s) that Cave took a serious interest in photography and explored the possibility of using his own photographs to illustrate a series of travelogues authored by him." Cave was an unusual commercial photographer of the period in that he specialized in landscape photography, adopting a naturalistic style in the main. Raheem and Colin-Thome declare, "He attempted to present a quintessential vision of Ceylon."

In 1886, fourteen years after his arrival in Ceylon, Cave returned to England, although he continued to take an interest in the firm he founded and frequently returned to the island until his death in 1913. During this period Cave published his series of travelogues, and in doing so made a major contribution to the documentation not only of the island's ancient civilization and physical beauty, but also, conversely, the new 'star' industry, tea, and the revolutionary transportation system, the railway.

icturesque Ceylon (1893-97), Ruined Cities of Ceylon (1897), Golden Tips: A Description of Ceylon and Its Great Tea Industry (1900), The Book of Ceylon (1908), and The Ceylon Government Railway (1910) are all works of merit that have mostly become integral to the bibliography of the island, with the bonus that they are illustrated by excellent (and now historically important) photographs by Cave himself.

Ceylon along the Rail Track is a reincarnation of The Ceylon Government Railway; what amounts to a second edition ninety-two years after the first, which has been bestowed with a new, less prosaic title. This change is justified by the publishers with the claim that it is more in keeping with the contents of the book. Such a claim certainly has some foundation, although whether they have the moral right to make such a change is a question that some may find pertinent. The deed having been done, it remains to be said that it would have been more appropriate, and would have caused less confusion, if the original title had appeared below the new one on the cover, not merely on the title page.

The Ceylon Government Railway, probably the least well-known of Cave's publications, is a guidebook firmly located in an era in which the railway was the standard method of travel for both foreign and local tourists. Bella Woolf's How to See Ceylon, on the other hand, which first appeared just four years later in 1914, is a guidebook weighted towards the motorized tourist, reflecting the change in modes of transportation at the time. In The Ceylon Government Railway, Cave condenses all the knowledge gained from his previous books (including The Book of Ceylon, which partly concerned the rail network), presents it in a most readable form, and includes over 200 of his best photographs. Moreover, the book contains a useful map of the railway system giving the distances between stations (most vital information, as will become apparent), together with maps of principal towns and tourist sites.

The first three chapters are introductory, giving a brief account of the country, Colombo and its environs, and the Ceylon Government Railway (CGR). About the island and the rail system Cave writes with enthusiasm, "Her railway now affords an easy and even luxurious means of reaching the most attractive parts of the country. It renders easily and quickly accessible the most beautiful scenery, the most interesting antiquities and all those fields of agricultural industry - the tea, the coconuts, and the rubber, which have brought about the advanced state of prosperity which the colony enjoys. No other country in the world can take you in spacious and comfortable railway carriages on a track of five feet six inches gauge, over mountains at an altitude of more than six thousand feet."

Cave is equally keen about the CGR rolling stock: "These modern carriages, which are constructed of teak, are not of the Indian type, with their longitudinal seats, but of the English pattern, and are furnished with excellent lavatory accommodation. The outsides of the carriages are of varnished teak, whilst the interiors are of the same wood polished, picked out with satinwood, and adorned with photographs of interesting places on the line."

Included for the traveller's convenience is a list of the copious CGR regulations. I confess I have always been attracted by such officious minutiae, which I find myself trawling through for the inevitable examples of absurd bureaucracy and baffling language. These particular regulations contain their fair share of red tape and unnecessary complexities for the holidaying passenger to contend with, such as the following regarding stopovers:

"Holders of first- and second-class return tickets between stations over 30 miles apart are allowed to break their journey at an intermediate station once on the outward and once on the homeward route, provided that they do not travel more than once in each direction over the same section of the line, and that the return journey is completed within the time for which the return ticket is available. When passengers avail themselves of this privilege, they must on alighting from the train, produce their ticket to the stationmaster, who will endorse it 'Broke journey at ------' (the name of the station being inserted) and initial and date the endorsement. Passengers holding first- and second-class return tickets between stations 30 miles apart, of which Peradeniya Junction is an intermediate station, may travel into Kandy and break journey there without paying excess fare between Peradeniya Junction and Kandy in either direction."

The remaining nine chapters provide an account of the various, delightful itineraries along the railway lines that made up the Island's network at the beginning of the twentieth century. Cave adopts a method whereby he describes the line, station by station, giving information regarding the area such as the availability of conveyances (including rates of hire), local accommodation, sites of interest, and products worth purchasing. He even lists bathing facilities where coastal places are concerned. While on the move, he describes the rivers that are crossed, the mountains that are passed. Whenever the rail track fails to go near an important destination Cave takes the reader by road from the nearest station. This method works well, but Cave is not so successful at peopling his landscapes. Missing is the perceptive writing on the indigenous population that is such an important aspect of Bella Woolf's guidebook.

The railway lines in question are the Coast Line from Colombo to Matara, the Main Line from Colombo to Bandarawela via Kandy, the Matale Branch Line, the old narrow-gauge Uda Pussella-wa Line (from Nanu-oya to Uda Pussellawa) the Northern Line (from Polgahawela Junction to Kankesanturai), the Kelani Valley Line, and finally the Negombo Branch Line. Cave intersperses the itineraries with an arresting selection of photographs, the best, predictably, being his often dramatic landscapes, such as "Allagala: The Streak of Fire", "The Shadow of Adam's Peak," and "Uva Under its Rainy Mantle". Also of interest are the photographs depicting railway stations, the pleasing architecture of which has now been lost to modernization.

Cave was not a writer on Ceylon of the same descriptive power as Robert Knox, James Emerson Tennent, or Leonard Woolf. Yet there are occasions when his prose reaches a higher plane, usually (and not unsurprisingly) when portraying the kind of landscape he found so irresistible as a photographer. Take, for instance, his description of the panorama experienced atop Pidurutalagala at dawn:

"The first glimmer of light reveals snowy masses of mist as far as the eye can scan, right away to the ocean east and west, with lighted peaks peering through the veil resembling laughing islands dotting a sea of foam. Then as the dawn breaks a golden tint gradually appears over the hills, and when the sun bursts over the horizon a rapid transformation takes place. The petrified surf of the mists now begins to move upwards, and reveals with vivid clearness the valleys all fresh from their repose. The dewy leaves of the forest trees and the trails of beautiful moss which cling to their branches glisten with glints of gold, the moistened rocks sparkle with diamonds, and all nature rejoices at the new-born day."

Apart from the original text the publishers have rightly considered it necessary to include a separate biographical note on Cave. Ceylon along the Rail Track is a worthy local contribution to the reprinting of books on Ceylon, which for so long has been the preserve of two Indian publishing firms. The reappearance in print of Cave's book is of obvious benefit to the reading public. In particular, it is a vital addition to the bookshelves of railway enthusiasts worldwide, those who collect colonial literature pertaining to the island, and anyone contemplating producing a tourist guidebook of whatever description.

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