Early Life
Laurence Oliphant was the only child of Sir Anthony Oliphant (1793–1859). At the time of his son's birth, Sir Anthony was attorney-general in Cape Colony, but was soon transferred as Chief Justice to Ceylon. Laurence's father was a younger son of a Scottish landed family. He spent his early childhood in Colombo, where his father purchased a home called Alcove in Captains Gardens, subsequently known as Maha Nuge Gardens. Sir Anthony and his son Laurence have been credited with bringing tea to Ceylon and growing 30 tea plants brought over from China - the tea was grown on the Oliphant Estate in Nuwara Eliya. The boy's education was of the most desultory kind, the most successful part belonging to the years 1848 and 1849, when he and his parents toured Europe. In 1851, he accompanied Jung Bahadur from Colombo to Nepal. He passed an agreeable time there, and saw enough that was new to enable him to write his first book, A Journey to Katmandu (1852).
In "The Question of Palestine: British-Jewish-Arab Relations, 1914-1918 By Isaiah Friedman", Laurence Oliphant's involvement with the Sultanate of the Ottoman Empire clearly extends beyond 1888. The differing accounts are difficult to reconcile.
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