Arthur Conan Doyle‘s surprising Sri Lankan adventure, more than a century ago.

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Imagine Colombo in 1920. The Indian Ocean crashing against Galle Face, horse-drawn carriages on the streets, and a famous British writer arriving in what was then called Ceylon.

The visitor was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the world’s most famous fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes.
But Doyle was about to encounter a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes might have enjoyed solving.
And it involved something very Sri Lankan — a mango tree!

A famous guest at the Galle Face Hotel

During his journey to Australia, Doyle stopped in Colombo with his wife and spent a night at the historic Galle Face Hotel.
He admired the enormous waves rolling in from the Indian Ocean. But there was one thing he did not particularly enjoy: the hotel bill!
In his travel book, The Wanderings of a Spiritualist, he complained about the hotel’s “preposterous charges”.
Apparently, even famous British authors thought Colombo’s hotels were expensive a century ago!
Still, the magnificent ocean views made up for some of his disappointment.

The extraordinary mango-tree mystery
mangotrick
franpritchett.com

One afternoon, Doyle watched a local magician perform a remarkable trick.
The magician showed the audience a mango seed, placed it in some earth, poured water over it and covered it with a cloth.
Moments later, a small green shoot appeared.
Then came the real surprise. When the cloth was removed again, there stood a mango plant about a foot tall, complete with leaves and blossoms!

Doyle was fascinated.

He carefully observed the magician’s hands, the cloth and even a small rag doll lying nearby.
Had the magician somehow hidden a real plant inside the doll and secretly unfolded it beneath the cloth?
That was Doyle’s theory. He noticed that some of the leaves looked slightly crumpled.
But he admitted that he could not be completely certain how the trick had been performed.
The creator of Sherlock Holmes had found himself investigating a real mystery in Colombo!
And the Sri Lankan magician had certainly impressed him.

A cobra, another surprise!

The magician had another surprise for his famous visitor — a live cobra.
He challenged Doyle to pick it up.
And Doyle actually did!
The writer later described looking into the snake’s unusual blue eyes, although he suspected its venom glands had been removed.
It was a memorable afternoon, even for a man who had invented some of literature’s greatest adventures.

The curious contradiction

There is an interesting twist to this story. Doyle created Sherlock Holmes, a detective who demanded evidence and used logic to solve mysteries.
Yet Doyle himself strongly believed in Spiritualism and the possibility of communicating with the dead.

In Colombo, however, he approached the mango-tree trick with a detective’s curiosity. Rather than accept it as supernatural, he searched for a practical explanation.

Perhaps that is what makes his encounter with the Sri Lankan magician so fascinating. The magician knew how to create wonder. Doyle wanted to discover how that wonder was created. And both understood the power of a good mystery.

From Colombo to your bookshelf

More than a hundred years ago, Arthur Conan Doyle came to Sri Lanka and encountered a mystery involving a mango seed.
Today, Sri Lankan readers can enter the mysterious world he created through Sherlock Holmes.
Start with A Study in Scarlet, enjoy the unforgettable detective stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or experience the suspense of The Hound of the Baskervilles.

And perhaps, while reading, you might remember the day when the creator of Sherlock Holmes stood in Colombo, wondering how a mango seed had apparently become a tree in minutes.

Explore Arthur Conan Doyle’s books at Lanka Books Online.
www.lankabooksonline.com

A little piece of a British bookshop, right here in Sri Lanka.