ABSTRACT
Well over a century has passed since Ernst Haeckel and Edward Carpenter made their long journeys to the Indian Ocean, from a Europe nearing the zenith of its economic and imperialist prowess to a small tropical colony. They could not have foreseen the changes that would occur in Europe, the British Empire and the island that so entranced them. The crown colony of Ceylon became an independent nation in 1948, then a republic in 1972, and has known many convulsions in a post-colonial history marked by civic strife and horrendous violence, though now with recovery.
