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August 14 - 

The old Southwest Monsoon, that has been held out as a sort of bogey to us, has not been so bad. Sudden gusts of wind and rain come up from time to time, and we all scurry to see if our particular animal line is well covered with tarp. But the sea has been pleasant, and no rough weather since the second day out. It is just as well; how I would survive slicing bananas and apples down in the smelly, noisy hatch, where the pigs squeal, the cockatoos shriek, the siamangs howl, and all the little birds twitter, I don't know unless the floor under me was fairly steady.

We had a swift current - three knots an hour - against us all the way along the coast of Ceylon, and instead of getting into Colombo in mid-afternoon, it was seven at night when we came into the harbor, and nearly nine before we got ashore. The harbor is pretty at night, with the big hotels lighted up, a light house blinking just outside of town, and a big sign that spells over and over again "Ceylon: For Good Tea". The harbor was full of ships, and they added their lights to the general festive effect.

Mr. Buell, the American Counsul, came down to the ship to meet us, and also Dr. Hill of the Medical School. When we finally got ashore we went to the Hotel to pick up Mrs. Hill and their small daughter Dorothy, and then went around to see Mrs. John Hagenbeck, to find out if she had any animals for sale. All she had, that we could use, was one squirrel, so we asked her to deliver it aboard in the morning.

Then we went out to the Hill's house, and saw his private collection of birds and animals, which included some rare things. Here were flying squirrels and flying phalangers, in cages that actually gave them room to fly; two kinds of purple-faced monkeys; a pangolin busily eating mashed banan a and milk; slender loris, with its big eyes and queer thin legs; slow loris; red langurs (one of them stole a big black wooden button off my dress); and many birds, including a pair of Queen of Bavaria parrots.

August 15 -

The Hills came on board early to see our menagerie. He brought us one slender loris in a cage, and I do hope it lives till we get home; it is a weird little beast. Our rock squirrel was also delivered, and we sailed at nine o'clock. All along the lovely, mountainous, hazy-blue coast we busily peeled bananas, seeing nothing of the land, and when we came up on deck again we were well out of sight of land, and rolling along across the Indian Ocean.

A stiff breeze blew up in the evening, and we were afraid of another storm, but the Silverash rides steadily, being heavily loaded, and all went well through the night.

August 17 -
 
There is plenty to worry about, even though the weather stays fine. The big Mawas kudah from Atjeh refuses to eat, having been fed exclusively on durian before being turned over to us, and durian being absent from the bill of fare we carry for our monks.