ABSTRACT
Ensconced in the garden, with beautiful flowers and beautiful youths to hand, Bevis Bawa and Donald Friend surrounded themselves with both sensual pleasure and cultural inspiration in the landscape, people and culture of Ceylon. Bawa was at home, and Friend had found a place that, for a time, he could call home, a refuge from the world outside. For other visitors and sojourners, before and afterward, Ceylon similarly presented multiple delights. Most enthused over the temples and jungles and beaches, their diaries and letters evoking the scenery that had attracted travellers for centuries; a few painted darker portraits of island life.
