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| THE CEYLON BUILDING - On the 21st of February,
1893, during very cold weather, a party of fifty-three Singhalese, or
natives of Ceylon, arrived at Jackson Park, with three hundred tons
of material, and set at work, their principal labor being the
erection of the characteristic pavilion which is portrayed in the
engraving. None of the Singhalese had ever before been outside of
the tropics, and scarcely knew there was a world of ice, snow and
storm, until their ill-clothed forms felt the piercing blasts of Lake
Michigan. They were given a site on the lake shore, very beautiful
in July, but very trying in March, and began their toil in Chicago.
Beside their kiosks in the Woman's and Manufactures Buildings, they
duly finished and opened this "Ceylon Court," which shows an
octagonal building in the centre, with two wings, reaching one to the
north and the other to the south. The length of the entire building
was one hundred and forty-eight feet; the width of the central part
was fifty feet. The doorway was handsomely carved in imitation of
ancient temples, and the general appearance of the edifice recalls,
with astonishing force, the architecture of the Japanese, as seen on
the Wooded Island. It was the business of Commissioner Grinlinton,
of Ceyon, to bring to the attention of Western commerce the teas,
nutmeg, ebony, cinnamon, mace, drums, hair ornaments, and carvings of
the celebrated island of Hindostan. Of all the Oriental races, the
Singhalese made the most agreeable impressions on Americans. |
