Item 01: R. T. Vowles diary, 22 August 1915-23 February 1916 - Page 108
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[Page 108]
Bread & Butter & Bananas. The waiters are all dressed in a skirt affair & white coat & bare feet. Many of the men wear a hair comb."back to front" & the real Cingalees have long hair tied at the back in a bun. It was here that we saw
the first white woman since leaving Melbourne.
We also noticed that there were no native women about & on enquiring why, we were told that last June [1915] there was a rising amongst the natives & that the volunteer force was called out & by the help of machine guns, principally, the rising was put down but some three thousand had been killed & wounded. Consequently all the women had been sent out into the interior.
After dinner we felt decidedly better & met Bohm & Holmes – the latter being a MP & who was supposed to arrest us. Bohm Hop Eric & I then got into a rickshaw & told him to run! run! run! hard! & so we jogged down town sitting in a one seater, like a minature