THE " VILE " CINGALESE
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I am afraid that the Cingalese were " vile " from the beginning as far as the hymn "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" is concerned. What is the evidence for the claim that "Java's Isle" is the original version and nut "Ceylon's Isle " ? Heber wrote the hymn in about twenty minutes—a genuine inspiration in hymn-writing surely. The only alteration he made was the word " savage " to " heathen " in the second verse. An interesting light is thrown on "Ceylon's Isle" and the "spicy breezes" by an entry in Heber's Journal of a Voyage to India. "Though we were now too far off Ceylon to catch the odours of the land, yet it is, we are assured, perfectly true that such odours are perceptible to a very considerable distance. In the Straits of Malacca a smell like that of a hawthorn hedge is commonly experienced ; and from Ceylon, at thirty or forty miles, under certain circum- stances, a yet more agreeable scent is inhaled" (September, 1823).—Yours, &c., H. C. J. SIDNELL. Kingston House, Todrnorden.
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