CHAPTER II.
Past Scenes--Attractions of Ceylon--Emigration--Difficulties in Settling--Accidents and Casualties--An Eccentric Groom--Insubordination--Commencement of Cultivation--Sagacity of the Elephant--Disappointments--"Death" in the Settlement--Shocking Pasturage--Success of Emigrants--"A Good Knock-about kind of a Wife".
I had not been long in England before I discovered that my trip to Ceylon had only served to upset all ideas of settling down quietly at home.

Scenes of former sports and places were continually intruding themselves upon my thoughts, and I longed to be once more roaming at large with the rifle through the noiseless wildernesses in Ceylon.

So delightful were the recollections of past incidents that I could scarcely believe that it lay within my power to renew them.

Ruminating over all that bad happened within the past year, I conjured up localities to my memory which seemed too attractive to have existed in reality.

I wandered along London streets, comparing the noise and bustle with the deep solitudes of Ceylon, and I felt like the sickly plants in a London parterre.