A sailing boat off a coastal inlet at moonlight, probably Trincomalee

The Scottish artist-adventurer Constance Frederica Gordon-Cumming visited Ceylon (Sri Lanka) between 1873 and 1874 at the invitation of the Bishop of Colombo, Hugh Jermyn, who in his youth had served a church near her family’s estate at Altyre, Elgin. This evocative watercolor describes a bay in Trincomalee on the island’s east coast at night. Lush vegetation grows along the shore, low clouds in the sky shield the moon, and reflections or phosphorescence sparkle on the water. The outline of a blooming aloe vera plant is lightly drawn　in the foreground.　The artist visited this location in 1873, and described her group’s nighttime departure in her book "Two Happy Years in Ceylon" (1892): "The sky was very dark, with stormy clouds scudding before a pretty stiff breeze, but the sea was all full of dancing, glittering points of pale white fire, with here and there large dazzling stars, which gleamed suddenly, then faded away into darkness like the intermittent flash from some beacon-light."