The Heron and the Pelican....

......and the lovely island of Sri Lanka.

Arab spice merchants had called it Serendib, Island of the Jewels, (from which the word “serendipity” originates). Under the plundering Portuguese, it became Ceilao. When their first ship landed, it was described in a later chronicle: “Information was brought to the King that there was in the harbour a race of very white and beautiful people who wear boots and hats of iron and never stop in one place. They eat a sort of white stone and drink blood.”