Stevenson (DD 645) - Naval Cruise Book

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Ceylon Colombo, Ceylon, was our second and next to last stop of the cruise. We arrived on the morning of October 30th, and after having made our way' into a harbor so crowded that it closely resembled a jammed parking lot on a football Saturday, 'we moored alongside the California. Fortunately we found that the liberty dock was a lot closer aboard than it had been at Singapore, which was a biq help to the liberty hounds. Ceylon, the land of Tea, the land of sapphires and diamonds, opals and emeralds-or were they? Every man was on his own as an expert as we poured ashore and swarmed through the shops to see what we could see. How any one town could support as many jewelry shops and gem merchants as did Colombo made us wonder, but in no time at all we were pretty busy supporting them ourselves. Little groups could be seen gathered around a counter or seated at a table, peering intently through a magnifying glass at a precious stone. The dusky Indian merchants were spieling their sales talk at flank speed, urging us to buy. Most of us knew little or nothing about stones, but we did our best to pretend we knew all the ropes. - And what prices! Unlike Singapore, where we knew that the asking price was simply the beginning of a maneuver and meant nothing, we found much to our sorrow that we couldn't bargain with these boys at all. There may have been some two packa one rupee deals, but not many. The Colombo mer- chants stuck by their guns, and usually we paid their price. In Colombo the rickshaw again made its appearance in large numbers, and any time of the day or night you could see some of the Steve's gang being trotted up and down the street in one of them. The barefooted natives could really made those buggies fly, despite the fact that their costume seemed to be a cross between a tight skirt and Grandpop's old nightgown. New sights and new experiences were in store for us. The Limeys , God bless them, had prepared an extensive schedule of sight seeing. trips and games by day, and dinners and dances by night. There were specially organ- ized tours of the town, Rugby football matches, and all-day trips to Kandy. The Wrens, the Waafs and the Fanys CField Army Nursing Yeomenl made their appearance for the first time, and in short order had us spinning around like tops. Dances at the Waffery and the Kent House Wrennery , picnic lunches on the beach with the Fanys-which leads into a good story. ,A xt