3-011-374 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Custom-House and inner harbour, Colombo, Ceylon [now Sri Lanka], 1864. Engraving from a photograph by Messrs. Slinn and Co. 'The European capital of Ceylon is not, indeed, a place of much maritime traffic, its port affording shelter to none but light native vessels, while the larger ships which anchor in the offing are exposed to disasters from the violence of the monsoons. It was to the vicinity of the cinnamon-gardens that Colombo owed its selection by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, and by the Dutch, whose Government was there established at a later date. Coffee, which has now become a more considerable article of Ceylon produce than cinnamon, finds its way to Galle or Trincomalee, and those towns will henceforth supersede Colombo, both in commercial and political importance'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.