" A promising enterprise truly, when every landholder
in Ceylon, on referring to his title-deeds, observes the
reservation of all precious metals to the crown. This is a fair
sample of the narrow-minded, selfish policy of a government
which, in endeavoring to save a little, loses all; a miserable
tampering with the public in attempting to make a cat's paw of
private enterprise.
How has this ended? The diggers left the island in disgust. If
the gold is there in quantity, there in quantity it remains to
the present time, unsought for. The subject of gold is so
generally interesting, and in this case of such importance to the
colony, that, believing as I do that it does exist in large
quantities, I must claim the reader's patience in going into this
subject rather fully.
Let us take the matter as it stands.
The reader will remember that I mentioned at an early part of
these pages that gold was first discovered in Ceylon by the
diggers in the bed of a stream near Kandy - that they
subsequently came to Newera Ellia, and there discovered gold
likewise.
It must be remembered that the main features of the country at
Newera Ellia and the vicinity are broad flats or swampy plains,
surrounded by hills and mountains: the former covered with rank
grass and intersected by small streams, the latter covered with
dense forest.
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