From Carnegie to Hirohito: New book traces Colombo's days as the world's port of call

Long before airports connected the continents, the world travelled by sea - and many of those journeys passed through Colombo.

During the age of steamships, the Sri Lankan port was one of the busiest stopovers on the global maritime map. Ships travelling between Europe, Asia and Australia routinely docked there. Among those who passed through were industrialist Andrew Carnegie, Japanese emperor Hirohito - then a young prince - and cricket legend Don Bradman.

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In his new book Colombo: Port of Call, Ajay Kamalakaran revisits that somewhat forgotten era when the Indian Ocean port briefly became a meeting point for some of the most remarkable figures of the 19th and 20th centuries. The book traces the journeys of 14 notable travellers who passed through the port city.

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One of the earliest travellers Kamalakaran writes about is Andrew Carnegie, the American industrialist who would go on to become one of the richest men in the world. Carnegie arrived in Ceylon in 1879 while travelling around the globe with his friend John Vandervort.

At the time, Galle was still the island's main port, though its importance was already declining as Colombo was emerging as the primary harbour. Carnegie spent a night in Galle before travelling to Colombo in a "closed four-wheeled horse carriage".

The journey clearly left an impression on him. Carnegie described the road to Colombo as "equal to one of our best park avenues". The coastal stretch, dotted with fishing communities hauling in long nets, struck him as "one continuous village".

His business instincts were also at work during the visit. Coffee plantations were then the backbone of Ceylon's economy, with more than 1,200 estates exporting millions of dollars' worth of the crop each year. But Carnegie also noticed the island's nascent tea industry, which at the time was largely meant for local consumption. "I shall watch the Ceylon tea question with interest," he wrote, predicting that tea production might one day rival coffee.

More than four decades later, another notable visitor arrived in Colombo under tight security.

In March 1921, Hirohito, then the 19-year-old crown prince of Japan, stopped in Colombo during his journey to Europe. The visit came just seven years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand had triggered the First World War, and the young royal's movements were closely guarded.

During the stopover, Hirohito travelled to Kandy to visit the Temple of the Tooth, one of Buddhism's most sacred sites. After the visit, he returned to Colombo and left for Europe on April 1.

On his way back to Japan later that year, Hirohito once again stopped in Colombo to restock supplies. The visit was brief and largely kept out of the public eye. 

According to the book, it was likely during one of these visits that the Japanese royal family established a connection with an Indian jeweller in Colombo, AK Hasheem. When Hirohito married Princess Nagako in 1924, Hasheem presented the royal couple with an ivory elephant carving studded with precious stones.

The book also recounts visits by several other well-known figures who passed through the island. Anton Chekhov, the Russian writer, stopped in Colombo in 1890 and spent about 55 hours there. Chekhov described the island as a "paradise".

Kamalakaran also writes about the visits of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Don Bradman, Mark Twain and Mahatma Gandhi, all of whom passed through Colombo at different points in time. Their journeys, the book suggests, offer a glimpse into a period when Colombo was not just a regional port but an important stop in the global network of sea travel.