The right royal tour

- Part One -

Princely pursuits

On 31 March 1870, the day after Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh's arrival in Ceylon, festivities began in earnest with the holding of a levee at Queen's House. "The Royal presence brought together chiefs and headmen who had not left their jungle homes for half a lifetime; whilst every European, near or afar, who could leave his house, came to the gathering," John Capper records in The Duke of Edinburgh in Ceylon. "The blending of the Native and European costumes - official and unofficial - has at all times a striking effect, but on this occasion was rendered still more effective by costumes but rarely seen in Ceylon."

On the evening of the April 1, the Governor, Sir Hercules Robinson, gave a reception in honour of the Prince at which dancing was kept up until the early hours of the morning. Robinson was considered to be one of the greatest colonial administrators of his day. Born in 1824, and trained as a soldier, he received his first colonial appointment at the age of 30 in the West Indies.

After some island-hopping among British possessions in the Caribbean, Robinson was appointed Governor of Hong Kong and held that office during the war with China (1860-61). He arrived in Ceylon in 1865 and as H.A.J Hulugalle states in British Governors of Ceylon (1963), "made immediate contact with the affairs of a flourishing colony momentarily passing through a minor political storm."

The "storm" to which Hulugalle refers was the controversy surrounding the resignation of six unofficial members of the Legislative Council (one of whom was John Capper) briefly described last week. This episode had occurred during the interregnum between the departure of Sir Charles MacCarthy and the arrival of Sir Hercules Robinson, when the Government of Ceylon was administered by Major General O'Brien. Robinson was to cause a storm of his own, however, when he remarked during the acute rice shortage of 1866:

"The wants of the native population of the Island are few, easily supplied by a day's work in their own garden or paddy field. Their philosophy, their love of ease and indolence, or their limited ideas, whichever may be the real cause, render them perfectly content with what they already possess, and it is therefore futile I think, to expect that they could be ever brought to supply with food an immigrant population, whose presence in the Island is mainly rendered necessary through their own apathy".

A day or so after the reception, the Prince, the Governor and a large entourage, set out before dawn to travel to Labugama to witness an elephant kraal. Inevitably, the route was festooned with decorations of one type or another. However, according to Capper, they "were not in all cases particularly picturesque, or even appropriate, according to our ideas of the fitness of things".

Capper continues by giving an example of how the natives, well-meaning though they were, had made a hash of things: "At one small village - in which a band of zealous missionaries had end- eavoured to lead the people to a knowledge of better things - banners streamed across the roads, with various scriptural sentences thereon, which, though admirable in themselves, had not a marked appropriateness to the occasion. On one was inscribed the words -

"To your tents, O Israel".

The journey turned out to be a particularly difficult one. The 'road' between Hanwella and Bope had been relaid with inferior material and the seasonal nightly thunder-showers had turned it into a quagmire. Conditions worsened with every mile and soon the animals began to show signs of defeat. "Horses gave in by the dozen, carriages were scattered along the road in thick profusion, and, as each mile was surmounted, the number of travellers became sensibly fewer", Capper comments.

A halt was called at the Bope resthouse, where a great deal of brandy, beer and champagne "found ready disposal." There arose the problem of how those travellers whose horses had foundered were to proceed. "Some took kindly to chairs, others flung themselves into bullock carts, reckless of consequences; and some drew on their oldest boots, tucked their trousers inside their half-hoses, and sallied forth on foot".

"Long strings of weary, footsore pedestrians, and travellers with jaded animals, began to ascend the last hill on the road leading to the kraal, as the sun dipped behind the tall forest to the west", Capper writes. No doubt most were suffering from hangovers as well as exhaustion. A crowd of planters, headmen and others gave the Prince a round of hearty cheers as the bizarre procession arrived. One of the decorations, erected by the planters of the Dikoya district, consisted "entirely of bottles emptied in honour of the occasion. Bass's pale-ale bottles formed the span, the crowning being of Jules Mumm, whilst in the centre shone a small bright star of soda-water bottles."

It has been estimated that nearly l0,000 persons attended this kraal, and so the encampment for their accommodation was the size of a small town. Amazingly, it had been constructed within a three-month period. It is clear from Capper's report that it was sited at an ideal location. "Every requisite was there: Lofty eminences, on which to erect the Prince's and other bungalows, whence a magnificent view was had... Adam's Peak, and in the distance to the west a faint white line marked the seashore, between Colombo and Negombo."

The elegant and spacious building erected for the Prince and the Governor's party "consisted of a central reception-hall with an octagonal smoking-room above, and two large wings - the one for the Duke and his suite, the other for the Governor and his party - comprising dining, sitting, and bed-rooms. These were substantially built of timber and talipots, thatched with cadjans and bamboo leaves, and festooned and decorated as the Singhalese only can decorate - leaves, flowers and fruit being entwined together with so much delicacy and airy tastefulness as to impart an almost fairy-like form to the pavilion .

"A gradual fall in the ground led away, by the side of an ample stream, to the site of the public buildings erected for the accommodation of general visitors, and between these two, dotted about at intervals in quiet little corners and shady rocks, were the private dwellings and tents of those who had obtained licences to build, and desired to lead a quiet life, removed from the scene of gaiety nightly enacted in the lower town; there streets of thatched bungalows stretched in long rows right and left, with all the usual adjuncts of a monster picnic in the tropics, of horse-stalls, bullock-sheds, and last, but assuredly not least, the native bazaar."

Reading about elephant kraaling at the end of the twentieth century, when the extinc- tion of the elephant in the wild may have been only a few decades away, it still is a depressing and heartbreaking experience. It is an experience given added poignancy and irony by the fact that tame elephants were employed to subdue the wild ones. As Capper writes: "It realised to our imagination the wild-beast fights within the amphitheatres of old Rome." But instead of an Emperor to witness the events, here was Queen Victoria's son, enthroned in a special Royal Stand, from where he could see the proud tusker of the captured herd, defiant to the bitter end, gunned down because it posed a threat:

"Mr. Lawrie, of the Artillery, fired with good effect, and sent the beast staggering on his knees, but only for the moment. Mr. Saunders fired twice, wounding him in the forehead or behind the ear, and there stood the monster of the forest, with the four bullet-holes in his massive forehead, down which thick streams of blood flowed and dropped upon his fellows, but still he faced his foes, until at length, one lucky shot, fired by Mr. Norris of Kalutara, striking him in the fatal spot behind the ear, stretched his huge form lifeless upon the ground."

Among the many visitors present at this kraal, and favoured with the privilege of admission to the Royal Stand, were the wife and daughter of "Idulmagodde, a chief of the Saffragam or Ratnapura district, and principal director of the kraal arrangements, who came to see the kraal somewhat, and the Prince a good deal". This last, cryptic remark, is partly explained by Capper's portrayal of Miss Idulmagodde, for it appears her beauty did not go unnoticed by the Prince.

Miss. Idulmagodde," Capper begins "is a splendidly-formed classical beauty, and an heiress into the bargain; she was just entering upon the ripening development of oriental eighteen; her limbs might have formed studies for a sculptor; her features would have charmed Carreggio; her rich black glossy hair, dark as midnight, falling in luxuriant clusters over her bare shoulders, and looped up here and there with threads of gold studded with jewels, might well have been the envy of any queen".

"This jungle beauty," Capper continues in his barely-contained admiration for the exotic Miss. Idulmagodde, "though brought up far removed from the world and its gaieties, was as self-possessed and as much at her ease, when addressed by his Royal Highness, as though accustomed to courtly society from early youth". Miss. Idulmagodde did not know English, "but we could not help observing a quiet smile steal over her fine features whilst the Prince conversed by her side, as though she had comprehended somewhat of his remarks".

However, there was, as Capper claims or- dinarily a settled melancholy on her face. And we learnt afterwards the cause: the poor girl was engaged against her will, to be married to an ugly old Kandyan chief! Have the days of chivalry passed so complete away, that there is no young knight to rescue this fair damsel from the clutches of the indigenous ogre?" Interestingly, as we shall see, the Prince was to meet up once again with Idulmagodde Menike during his visit.

The Prince and his party returned to Colombo, where, on April 6, he attended a public ball hosted by the general community, at which "the votaries of Terpsichore pursued the mazy waltz and staid quadrille". It was not long, however, before the Prince abandoned the pleasures of the refined life for the dubious satisfactions of yet another elephant kraal - this time to be held at Ebawalapitiya in the Kurunegala district.

The journey was accomplished by rail and road. A Royal train consisting of seven carriages conveyed the party to Polgahawela, where everyone alighted and proceeded to Kurunegala and thence to the kraal on the Anuradhapura road. "The situation of the kraal and kraal-camp was altogether of a different character from that at the first kraal," Capper writes, "The country was dead level and rather thickly wooded. In laying out the roads and building sites, no more trees were felled than were absolutely necessary: there was subsequently ample shade on all sides - every bungalow lay amidst a dense leafy thicket .

"The Police Barracks and Post Office, the Restaurant, long lines of cadjan dwellings, with stabling, cooking-rooms etc., lay scattered about in all directions: running off the road to the left, beneath a lofty, highly-decorated arch, ran a broad straight road to the kraal, planted on either side with leafy streamers and small flags. Along this road on one side were various official dwellings, amply shaded by lofty trees. Amongst them were the bungalows of the Colonial Secretary, the Treasurer, the Agent of the Central Province, etc. Beyond all these was the Royal residence, in front of which was a lofty flagstaff."

It was during this kraal that an elephant (curiously, not a wild but tame one) took revenge on a member of the human race who had persisted in entering the kraal area, declaring that he had charms which would prevent elephants from touching him. This man had aroused an elephant which had struck at him. While running away, the man tripped over a branch and fell, in classic movie style. "The elephant caught him, struck him down, kicked him, and then pressed him viciously with his head. He then lifted him with his trunk, and hurled him for a distance of many yards."

To everyone's astonishment, the man got up and ran away again, without further intervention from the elephant. "Had this occurred on hard ground the result must have been fatal," Capper comments. The softness of the mud had saved him as the elephant pressed him into it. He could then have suffocated, however, but for the fact that the elephant did not abandon the attack at this point. Instead, the animal had lifted his victim out of the mud and thrown him once more.

At the conclusion of the kraal, the Prince travelled by train from Polgahawela to Kandy. Soon after his arrival, a levee "which was largely and brilliantly attended", was held. "The gathering was very different from that at the Colombo levee," Capper asserts. The dresses were far more picturesque, and the numerous attendance of coffee-planters, with their fine, manly, healthy and ruddy countenances, presented a striking contrast to the pale faces of the Colombo residents."

Capper goes on to reveal a certain lack of understanding, even prejudice: "In strange and uncouth contrast to these, was the party of Veddahs unwashed, uncombed, and all but unclad, carrying primitive bows and arrows. There they stand, in a close compact group, with matted hair and haggard features, resting on their bows, and eyeing, in silent marvel, the gay and merry throngs that passed them on the way to the audience room".

Admirably as Kandy decorated appeared by daylight, it was nothing compared with Kandy illuminated", Capper writes enthusiastically of the night-time scenes that greeted the Royal visitor in the hill capital. "By half-past-eight, everything in the way of lighting up was in full action, and, as witnessed from the lake or the adjacent hills, the effect was remarkably good. The bonfires on the several points were not all visible from one spot, but they were not the less striking. Hunasgiriya, Hantanne Peak, and the eastern and western redoubts, vied with each other in brilliancy.

"At a signal given by the discharge of a gun, the small island on the lake burst into a flood of brilliant light from a mass of pyrotechnic. These displays were responded to with equal effect from a native party on the green; and these again were answered by blue-light of great beauty in the ground of some of the residents on the hill-sides opposite. The pyrotechnic display was maintained with great activity for nearly an hour, but long after the last rocket had sent its shower of sparks into space, the town kept up the festivity of the night."

- More next week -

More Plus  *  Flutter, the flags of peace

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