Ceylon’s Victorian issues
glance at a map of India with Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) off its southern tip gives a misleading impression of Ceylon as a very small appended island. In fact it is three times the size of Wales. What’s more, its ancient history tells of a fierce independence that kept Indian armies at bay for far longer than the Welsh kept out the English. Geographically it possessed several advantages which inevitably resulted in Ceylon developing into a major trading nation. Deep water harbours, a wide variety of indigenous spices, reliable trade winds, and predictable ocean currents brought profits from
