ccxxiv. The renown of Ceylon as it reached Europe in the seventeenth

century is thus summed up by PURCHAS in _His Pilgrimage_, b.v.c. 18, p. 550:--"The heauens with their dewes, the ayre with a pleasant holesomenesse and fragrant freshnesse, the waters in their many riuers and fountaines, the earth diuersified in aspiring hills, lowly vales, equall and indifferent plaines, filled in her inward chambers with mettalls and jewells, in her outward court and vpper face stored with whole woods of the best cinnamons that the sunne seeth; besides fruits, oranges, lemons, &c. surmounting those of Spaine; fowles and beasts, both tame and wilde (among which is their elephant honoured by a naturall acknowledgement of excellence of all other elephants in the world). These all have conspired and joined in common league to present unto Zeilan the chiefe of worldly treasures and pleasures, with a long and healthfull life in the inhabitants to enjoye them. No marvell, then, if sense and sensualitie have heere stumbled on a paradise."]

[Footnote 2: The fable of the "spicy breezes" said to blow from Arabia and India, is as old as Ctesias; and is eagerly repeated by Pliny? lib. xii. c. 42. The Greeks borrowed the tale from the Hindus, who believe that the _Chandana_ or sandal-wood imparts its odours to the winds; and their poete speak of the Malayan as the westerns did of the Sabæan breezes. But the allusion to such perfumed winds was a trope common to all the discoverers of unknown lands: the companions of Columbus ascribed them to the region of the Antilles; and Verrazani and Sir Walter Raleigh scented them off the coast of Carolina. Milton borrowed from Diodorus Siculus, lib. iii. c. 46, the statement that:

"Far off at sea north-east winds blow Sabæan odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest." (_P.L._ iv. 163.)

Ariosto employs the same imaginative embellishment to describe the charms of Cyprus:

"Serpillo e persa e rose e gigli e croco Spargon dall'odorifero terreno Tanta suavita, ch'in mar sentire La fa ogni vento che da terra spire." (_Oil. Fur._ xviii. 138.)

That some aromatic smell is perceptible far to seaward, in the vicinity of certain tropical countries, is unquestionable; and in the instance of Cuba, an odour like that of violets, which is discernible two or three miles from land, when the wind is off the shore, has been traced by Poeppig to a species of _Tetracera_, a climbing plant which diffuses its odour during the night. But in the case of Ceylon? if the existence of such a perfume be not altogether imaginary, the fact has been falsified by identifying the alleged fragrance with cinnamon; the truth being that the cinnamon laurel, unless it be crushed, exhales no aroma whatever; and the peculiar odour of the spice is only perceptible after the bark has been separated and dried.]

[Footnote 3: LASSEN, _Indische Alterthumskunde_ vol. i. p. 198.]

_Picturesque Outline_.--The nucleus of its mountain masses consists of gneissic, granitic, and other crystalline rocks, which in their resistless upheaval have rent the superincumbent strata, raising them into lofty pyramids and crags, or hurling them in gigantic fragments to the plains below. Time and decay are slow in their assaults on these towering precipices and splintered pinnacles; and from the absence of more perishable materials, there are few graceful sweeps along the higher chains or rolling downs in the lower ranges of the hills. Every bold elevation is crowned by battlemented cliffs, and flanked by chasms in which the shattered strata are seen as sharp and as rugged as if they had but recently undergone the grand convulsion that displaced them.

_Foliage and Verdure_.--The soil in these regions is consequently light and unremunerative, but the plentiful moisture arising from the interception of every passing vapour from the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal, added to the intense warmth of the atmosphere, combine to force a vegetation so rich and luxuriant, that imagination can picture nothing more wondrous and charming; every level spot is enamelled with verdure, forests of never-fading bloom cover mountain and valley; flowers of the brightest hues grow in profusion over the plains, and delicate climbing plants, rooted in the shelving rocks, hang in huge festoons down the edge of every precipice.

Unlike the forests of Europe, in which the excess of some peculiar trees imparts a character of monotony and graveness to the outline and colouring, the forests of Ceylon are singularly attractive from the endless variety of their foliage, and the vivid contrast of its hues. The mountains, especially those looking towards the east and south, rise abruptly to prodigious and almost precipitous heights above the level plains; the rivers wind through woods below like threads of silver through green embroidery, till they are lost in a dim haze which conceals the far horizon; and through this a line of tremulous light marks where the sunbeams are glittering among the waves upon the distant shore.

From age to age a scene so lovely has imparted a colouring of romance to the adventures of the seamen who, in the eagerness of commerce, swept round the shores of India, to bring back the pearls and precious stones, the cinnamon and odours, of Ceylon. The tales of the Arabians are fraught with the wonders of "Serendib;" and the mariners of the Persian Gulf have left a record of their delight in reaching the calm havens of the island, and reposing for months together in valleys where the waters of the sea were overshadowed by woods, and the gardens were blooming in perennial summer.[1]

[Footnote 1: REINAUD, _Relation des Voyages Arabes, &c., dans le neuvième siècle_. Paris, 1845, tom. ii. p. 129.]

_Geographical Position_.--Notwithstanding the fact that the Hindus, in their system of the universe, had given prominent importance to Ceylon, their first meridian, "the meridian of Lanka," being supposed to pass over the island, they propounded the most extravagant ideas, both as to its position and extent; expanding it to the proportions of a continent, and at the same time placing it a considerable distance south-east of India.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a condensed account of the dimensions and position attributed to Lanka, in the Mythic Astronomy of the Hindus, see REINAUD's _Introduction to Aboulféda_, sec. iii. p. ccxvii., and his _Mémoire sur l'Inde_, p. 342; WILFORD's _Essay on the Sacred Isles of the West_, Asiat. Researches, vol. x, p. 140.]

The native Buddhist historians, unable to confirm the exaggerations of the Brahmans, and yet reluctant to detract from the epic renown of their country by disclaiming its stupendous dimensions, attempted to reconcile its actual extent with the fables of the eastern astronomers by imputing to the agency of earthquakes the submersion of vast regions by the sea.[1] But evidence is wanting to corroborate the assertion of such an occurrence, at least within the historic period; no record of it exists in the earliest writings of the Hindus, the Arabians, or Persians; who, had the tradition survived, would eagerly have chronicled a catastrophe so appalling.[2] Geologic analogy, so far as an inference is derivable from the formation of the adjoining coasts, both of India and Ceylon, is opposed to its probability; and not only plants, but animals, mammalia, birds, reptiles, and insects, exist in Ceylon, which are not to be found in the flora or fauna of the Indian continent.[3]

[Footnote 1: SIR WILLIAM JONES adopted the legendary opinion that Ceylon "formerly perhaps, extended much farther to the west and south, so as to include Lanka or the equinoctial point of the Indian astronomers."--_Discourse on the Institution of a Society for inquiring into the History, &c., of the Borderers, Mountaineers, and Islanders of Asia_.--Works, vol. i. p. 120.

The Portuguese, on their arrival in Ceylon in the sixteenth century, found the natives fully impressed by the traditions of its former extent and partial submersion; and their belief in connection with it, will be found in the narratives and histories of De Barros and Diogo de Couto, from which they have been transferred, almost without abridgment, to the pages of Valentyn. The substance of the native legends will be found in the _Mahawanso_, c. xxii. p. 131; and _Rajavali_, p. 180, 190.]

[Footnote 2: The first disturbance of the coast by which Ceylon is alleged to have been severed from the main land is said by the Buddhists to have taken place B.C. 2387; a second commotion is ascribed to the age of Panduwaasa, B.C. 504; and the subsidence of the shore adjacent to Colombo is said to have taken place 200 years later, in the reign of Devenipiatissa, B.C. 306. The event is thus recorded in the _Rajavali_, one of the sacred books of Ceylon:--"In these days the sea was seven leagues from Kalany; but on account of what had been done to the teeroonansee (a priest who had been tortured by the king of Kalany), the gods who were charged with the conservation of Ceylon, became enraged and caused the sea to deluge the land; and as during the epoch called _duwapawrayaga_ on account of the wickedness of Rawana, 25 palaces and 400,000 streets were all over-run by the sea, so now in this time of Tissa Raja, 100,000 large towns, 910 fishers' villages, and 400 villages inhabited by pearl fishers, making together eleven-twelfths of the territory of Kalany, were swallowed up by the sea."--_Rajavali_, vol. ii. p. 180, 190.

FORBES observes the coincidence that the legend of the rising of the sea in the age of Panduwaasa, 2378 B.C., very nearly concurs with the date assigned to the Deluge of Noah, 2348,--_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. ii. p. 258. A tradition is also extant, that a submersion took place at a remote period on the east coast of Ceylon, whereby the island of Giri-dipo, which is mentioned in the first chapter of the _Mahawanso_, was engulfed, and the dangerous rocks called the Great and Little Basses are believed to be remnants of it.--_Mahawanso_, c. i.

A _résumé_ of the disquisitions which have appeared at various times as to the submersion of a part of Ceylon, will be found in a Memoir _sur la Géographie ancienne de Ceylon_, in the Journal Asiatique for January, 1857, 5th ser., vol. ix. p. 12; see also TURNOUR'S _Introd. to the Mahawanso_, p. xxxiv.]

[Footnote 3: Some of the mammalia peculiar to the island are enumerated at p. 160; birds found in Ceylon but not existing in India are alluded to at p. 178, and Dr. A. GÜNTHER, in a paper on the _Geographical Distribution of Reptiles_, in the _Mag. of Nat. Hist._ for March, 1859, says, "amongst these larger islands which are connected with the middle palæotropical region, none offers forms so different from the continent and other islands as Ceylon. It might be considered the Madagascar of the Indian region. We not only find there peculiar genera and species, not again to be recognised in other parts; but even many of the common species exhibit such remarkable varieties, as to afford ample means for creating new nominal species," p. 280. The difference exhibited between the insects of Ceylon and those of Hindustan and the Dekkan are noticed by Mr. Walker in the present work, p. ii. ch. vii, vol. i. p. 270. See on this subject RITTER'S _Erdkunde_, vol. iv. p. 17.]

Still in the infancy of geographical knowledge, and before Ceylon had been circumnavigated by Europeans, the mythical delusions of the Hindus were transmitted to the West, and the dimensions of the island were expanded till its southern extremity fell below the equator, and its breadth was prolonged till it touched alike on Africa and China.[1]

[Footnote 1: GIBBON, ch. xxiv.]

The Greeks who, after the Indian conquests of Alexander, brought back the earliest accounts of the East, repeated them without material correction, and reported the island to be nearly twenty times its actual extent. Onesicritus, a pilot of the expedition, assigned to it a magnitude of 5000 stadia, equal to 500 geographical miles.[1] Eratosthenes attempted to fix its position, but went so widely astray that his first (that is his most southern) parallel passed through it and the "Cinnamon Land," the _Regio Cinnamomifera_, on the east coast of Africa.[2] He placed Ceylon at the distance of seven days' sail from the south of India, and he too assigned to its western coast an extent of 5000 stadia.[3] Both those authorities are quoted by Strabo, who says that the size of Taprobane was not less than that of Britain.[4]

[Footnote 1: STRABO, lib. v. Artemidorus (100 B.C.), quoted by Stephanus of Byzantium, gives to Ceylon a length of 7000 stadia and a breadth of 500.]

[Footnote 2: STRABO, lib. ii. c. i. s. 14.]

[Footnote 3: The text of Strabo showing this measure makes it in some places 8000 (Strabo, lib. v.); and Pliny, quoting Eratosthenes, makes it 7000.]

[Footnote 4: STRABO, lib. ii. c. v. s. 32. Aristotle appears to have had more correct information, and says Ceylon was not so large as Britain.--_De Mundo_ ch. iii.]

The round numbers employed by those authors, and by the Greek geographers generally, who borrow from them, serve to show that their knowledge was merely collected from rumours; and that in all probability they were indebted for their information to the stories of Arabian or Hindu sailors returning from the Eastern seas.

Pliny learned from the Singhalese Ambassador who visited Rome in the reign of Claudius, that the breadth of Ceylon was 10,000 stadia from west to east; and Ptolemy fully developed the idea of his predecessors, that it lay opposite to the "Cinnamon Land," and assigned to it a length from north to south of nearly _fifteen degrees_, with a breadth of _eleven_, an exaggeration of the truth nearly twenty-fold.[1] Agathemerus copies Ptolemy; and the plain and sensible author of the "Periplus" (attributed to Arrian), still labouring with the delusion of the magnitude of Ceylon, makes it stretch almost to the opposite coast of Africa.[2]

[Footnote 1: PTOLEMY, lib. vii. c. 4.]

[Footnote 2: ARRIAN, _Periplus_, p. 35. Marcianus Heracleota (whose Periplus has been reprinted by HUDSON, in the same collection from which I have made the reference to that of Arrian) gives to Ceylon a length of 9500 stadia with a breadth of 7500.--MAR. HER. p. 26.]

These extravagant ideas of the magnitude of Ceylon were not entirely removed till many centuries later. The Arabian geographers, Massoudi, Edrisi, and Aboulfeda, had no accurate data by which to correct the errors of their Greek predecessors. The maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries repeated their distortions[1]; and Marco Polo, in the fourteenth century, who gives the island the usual exaggerated dimensions, yet informs us that it is now but one half the size it had been at a former period, the rest having been engulfed by the sea.[2]

[Footnote 1: For an account of Ceylon as it is figured in the _Mappe-mondes_ of the Middle Ages, see the _Essai_ of the VICOMTE DE SANTAREM, _Sur la Cosmographie et Cartographie_, tom. iii. p. 335, &c.]

[Footnote 2: MARCO POLO, p. 2, c. 148. A later authority than Marco Polo, PORCACCHI, in his _Isolario_, or "Description of the most celebrated Islands in the World," which was published at Venice in A.D. 1576, laments his inability even at that time to obtain any authentic information as to the boundaries and dimensions of Ceylon; and, relying on the representations of the Moors, who then carried on an active trade around its coasts, he describes it as lying under the equinoctial line, and possessing a circuit of 2100 miles. "Ella gira di circuito, secondo il calcole fatto da Mori, che modernamente l'hanno nauigato d'ogn'intorno due mila et cento miglia et corre mæstro e sirocco; et per il mezo d'essa passa la linea equinottiale et è el principio del primo clima al terzo paralello."--_L'Isole piu Famose del Monde, descritte da_ THOMASO PORCACCHI, lib. iii. p. 30.]

Such was the uncertainty thrown over the geography of the island by erroneous and conflicting accounts, that grave doubts came to be entertained of its identity, and from the fourteenth century, when the attention of Europe was re-directed to the nascent science of geography, down to the close of the seventeenth, it remained a question whether Ceylon or Sumatra was the Taprobane of the Greeks.[1]

[Footnote 1: GIBBON states, that "Salmasius and most of the ancients confound the islands of Ceylon and Sumatra."--_Decl. and Fall_ ch. xl. This is a mistake. Saumaise was one of those who maintained a correct opinion; and, as regards the "ancients," they had very little knowledge of _Further India_ to which Sumatra belongs; but so long as Greek and Roman literature maintained their influence, no question was raised as to the identity of Ceylon and Taprobane. Even in the sixth century Cosmas Indicopleustes declares unhesitatingly that the Sielediva of the Indians was the Taprobane of the Greeks.

It was only on emerging from the general ignorance of the Middle Ages that the doubt was first promulgated. In the Catalan Map of A.D. 1375, entitled _Image du Monde_, Ceylon is omitted, and Taprobane is represented by Sumatra (MALTE BRUN, _Hist. de Geogr._ vol. i, p. 318); in that of _Fra Mauro_, the Venetian monk, A.D. 1458, Seylan is given, but _Taprobane_ is added over _Sumatra_. A similar error appears in the _Mappe-monde,_ by RUYCH, in the Ptolemy of A.D. 1508, and in the writings of the geographers of the sixteenth century, GEMMA FRISIUS, SEBASTIAN MUNSTER, RAMUSIO, JUL. SCALIGER, ORTELIUS, and MERCATOR. The same view was adopted by the Venetian NICOLA DI CONTI, in the first half of the fifteenth century, by the Florentine ANDREA CORSALI, MAXIMILIANUS TRANSYLVANUS, VARTHEMA, and PIGAFETTA. The chief cause of this perplexity was, no doubt, the difficulty of reconciling the actual position and size of Ceylon with the dimensions and position assigned to it by Strabo and Ptolemy, the latter of whom, by an error which is elsewhere explained, extended the boundary of the island far to the east of its actual site. But there was a large body of men who rejected the claim of Sumatra, and DE BARROS, SALMASIUS, BOCHART CLUVERIUS, CELLARIUS, ISAAC VOSSIUS and others, maintained the title of Ceylon. A _Mappe-monde_ of A.D. 1417, preserved in the Pitti Palace at Florence compromises the dispute by designating Sumatra _Taprobane Major_. The controversy came to an end at the beginning of the eighteenth century, when the overpowering authority of DELISLE resolved the doubt, and confirmed the modern Ceylon as the Taprobane of antiquity. WILFORD, in the _Asiatic Researches_ (vol. x. p. 140), still clung to the opposite opinion, and KANT undertook to prove that Taprobane was Madagascar.]

_Latitude and Longitude_.--There has hitherto been considerable uncertainty as to the position assigned to Ceylon in the various maps and geographical notices of the island: these have been corrected by more recent observations, and its true place has been ascertained to be between 5° 55' and 9° 51' north latitude, and 79° 41' 40" and 81° 54' 50" east longitude. Its extreme length from north to south, from Point Palmyra to Dondera Head, is 271-1/2 miles; its greatest width 137-1/2 miles, from Colombo on the west coast to Sangemankande on the east; and its area, including its dependent islands, 25,742 miles, or about one-sixth smaller than Ireland.[1]

[Footnote 1: Down to a very recent period no British colony was more imperfectly surveyed and mapped than Ceylon; but since the recent publication by Arrowsmith of the great map by General Fraser, the reproach has been withdrawn, and no dependency of the Crown is more richly provided in this particular. In the map of Schneider, the Government engineer in 1813, two-thirds of the Kandyan Kingdom are a blank; and in that of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, re-published so late as 1852, the rich districts of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny, in which there are innumerable villages (and scarcely a hill), are marked as "_unknown mountainous region_." General Fraser, after the devotion of a lifetime to the labour, has produced a survey which, in extent and minuteness of detail, stands unrivalled. In this great work he had the co-operation of Major Skinner and of Captain Gallwey, and to these two gentlemen the public are indebted for the greater portion of the field-work and the trigonometrical operations. To judge of the difficulties which beset such an undertaking, it must be borne in mind that till very recently travelling in the interior of Ceylon was all but impracticable, in a country unopened even by bridle roads, across unbridged rivers, over mountains never trod by the foot of a European, and amidst precipices inaccessible to all but the most courageous and prudent. Add to this that the country is densely covered with forest and jungle, with trees a hundred feet high, from which here and there the branches had to be cleared to obtain a sight of the signal stations. The triangulation was carried on amidst privations, discomfort, and pestilence, which frequently prostrated the whole party, and forced their attendants to desert them rather than encounter such hardships and peril. The materials collected by the colleagues of General Fraser under these discouragements have been worked up by him with consummate skill and perseverance. The base line, five and a quarter miles in length, was measured in 1845 in the cinnamon plantation at Kaderani, to the north of Colombo, and its extremities are still marked by two towers, which it was necessary to raise to the height of one hundred feet, to enable them to be discerned above the surrounding forests. These it is to be hoped will be carefully kept from decay, as they may again be called into requisition.

As regards the sea line of Ceylon, an admirable chart of the West coast, from Adam's Bridge to Dondera Head, has been published by the East India Company from a survey in 1845. But information is sadly wanted as to the East and North, of which no accurate charts exist, except of a few unconnected points, such as the harbour of Trincomalie.]

_General Form_.--In its general outline the island resembles a pear--and suggests to its admiring inhabitants the figure of those pearls which from their elongated form are suspended from the tapering end. When originally upheaved above the ocean its shape was in all probability nearly circular, with a prolongation in the direction of north-east. The mountain zone in the south, covering an area of about 4212 miles[1], may then have formed the largest proportion of its entire area--and the belt of low lands, known as the Maritime Provinces, consists to a great extent of soil from the disintegration of the gneiss, detritus from the hills, alluvium carried down the rivers, and marine deposits gradually collected on the shore. But in addition to these, the land has for ages been slowly rising from the sea, and terraces abounding in marine shells imbedded in agglutinated sand occur in situations far above high-water mark. Immediately inland from Point de Galle, the surface soil rests on a stratum of decomposing coral; and sea shells are found at a considerable distance from the shore. Further north at Madampe, between Chilaw and Negombo, the shells of pearl oysters and other bivalves are turned up by the plough more than ten miles from the sea.

[Footnote 1: This includes not only the lofty mountains suitable for the cultivation of coffee, but the lower ranges and spurs which connect them with the maritime plains.]

These recent formations present themselves in a still more striking form in the north of the island, the greater portion of which may be regarded as the conjoint production of the coral polypi, and the currents, which for the greater portion of the year set impetuously towards the south. Coming laden with alluvial matter collected along the coast of Coromandel, and meeting with obstacles south of Point Calimere, they have deposited their burthens on the coral reefs round Point Pedro; and these gradually raised above the sea-level, and covered deeply by sand drifts, have formed the peninsula of Jaffna and the plains that trend westward till they unite with the narrow causeway of Adam's Bridge--itself raised by the same agencies, and annually added to by the influences of the tides and monsoons.[1]

[Footnote 1: The barrier known as Adam's Bridge, which obstructs the navigation of the channel between Ceylon and Ramnad, consists of several parallel ledges of conglomerate and sandstone, hard at the surface, and growing coarse and soft as it descends till it rests on a bank of sand, apparently accumulated by the influence of the currents at the change of the monsoons. See an _Essay_ by Captain STEWART _on the Paumbem Passage_. Colombo, 1837. See Vol. II. p. 554.]

On the north-west side of the island, where the currents are checked by the obstruction of Adam's Bridge, and still water prevails in the Gulf of Manaar, these deposits have been profusely heaped, and the low sandy plains have been proportionally extended; whilst on the south and east, where the current sweeps unimpeded along the coast, the line of the shore is bold and occasionally rocky.

This explanation of the accretion and rising of the land is somewhat opposed to the popular belief that Ceylon was torn from the main land of India[1] by a convulsion, during which the Gulf of Manaar and the narrow channel at Paumbam were formed by the submersion of the adjacent land. The two theories might be reconciled by supposing the sinking to have occurred at an early period, and to have been followed by the uprising still in progress. But on a closer examination of the structure and direction of the mountain system of Ceylon, it exhibits no traces of submersion. It seems erroneous to regard it as a prolongation of the Indian chains; it lies far to the east of the line formed by the Ghauts on either side of the peninsula, and any affinity which it exhibits is rather with the equatorial direction of the intersecting ranges of the Nilgherries and the Vindhya. In their geological elements there is, doubtless, a similarity between the southern extremity of India and the elevated portions of Ceylon; but there are also many important particulars in which their specific differences are irreconcilable with the conjecture of previous continuity. In the north of Ceylon there is a marked preponderance of aqueous strata, which are comparatively rare in the vicinity of Cape Comorin; and whilst the rocks of the former are entirely destitute of organic remains[2]; fossils, both terrestrial and pelagic, have been found in the Eastern Ghauts, and sandstone, in some instances, overlays the primary rocks which compose them. The rich and black soil to the south of the Nilgherries presents a strong contrast to the red and sandy earth of the opposite coast; and both in the flora and fauna of the island there are exceptional peculiarities which suggest a distinction between it and the Indian continent.

[Footnote 1: LASSEN, _Indische Alterthumskunde_, vol. i. p. 193.]

[Footnote 2: At Cutchavelly, north of Trincomalie, there exists a bed of calcareous clay, in which shells and crustaceans are found in a semi-fossilised state; but they are all of recent species, principally _Macrophthalmus_ and _Scylla_. The breccia at Jaffna contains recent shells, as does also the arenaceous strata on the western coast of Manaar and in the neighbourhood of Galle. The existence of the fossilised crustaceans in the north of Ceylon was known to the early Arabian navigators. Abou-zeyd describes them as, "Un animal de mer qui resemble à l'écrevisse; quand cet animal sort de la mer, _il se convertit en pierre_." See REINAUD, _Voyages faits par les Arabes_, vol. i. p. 21. The Arabs then; and the Chinese at the present day, use these petrifactions when powdered as a specific for diseases of the eye.]

_Mountain System_.--At whatever period the mountains of Ceylon may have been raised, the centre of maximum energy must have been in the vicinity of Adam's Peak, the group immediately surrounding which has thus acquired an elevation of from six to eight thousand feet above the sea.[1] The uplifting force seems to have been exerted from south-west to north-east; and although there is much confusion in many of the intersecting ridges, the lower ranges, especially those to the south and west of Adam's Peak, from Saffragam to Ambogammoa, manifest a remarkable tendency to run in parallel ridges in a direction from south-east to north-west.

[Footnote 1: The following are the heights of a few of the most remarkable places:--

Pedrotallagalla 8280 English feet. Kirrigalpotta 7810 English feet. Totapella 7720 English feet. Adam's Peak 7420 English feet. Nammoone-Koolle 6740 English feet. Plain of Neuera-ellia 6210 English feet.]

Towards the north, on the contrary, the offsets of the mountain system, with the exception of those which stretch towards Trincomalie, radiate to short distances in various directions, and speedily sink down to the level of the plain. Detached hills of great altitude are rare, the most celebrated being that of Mihintala, which overlooks the sacred city of Anarajapoora: and Sigiri is the only example in Ceylon of those solitary acclivities, which form so remarkable a feature in the table-land of the Dekkan, starting abruptly from the plain with scarped and perpendicular sides, and converted by the Indians into strongholds, accessible only by precipitous pathways, or steps hewn in the solid rock.

The crest of the Ceylon mountains is of stratified crystalline rock, especially gneiss, with extensive veins of quartz, and through this the granite has been everywhere intruded, distorting the riven strata, and tilting them at all angles to the horizon. Hence at the abrupt terminations of some of the chains in the district of Saffragam, plutonic rocks are seen mingled with the dislocated gneiss. Basalt makes its appearance both at Galle and Trincomalie. In one place to the east of Pettigalle-Kanda, the rocks have been broken up in such confusion as to resemble the effect of volcanic action--huge masses overhang each other like suddenly-cooled lava; and Dr. Gygax, a Swiss mineralogist, who was employed by the Government in 1847 to examine and report on the mineral resources of the district, stated, on his return, that having seen the volcanoes of the Azores, he found a "strange similarity at this spot to one of the semi-craters round the trachytic ridge of Seticidadas, in the island of St. Michael."[1]

[Footnote 1: Beyond the very slightest symptoms of disturbance, earthquakes are unknown in Ceylon: and although its geology exhibits little evidence of volcanic action (with the exception of the basalt, which occasionally presents an appearance approaching to that of lava), there are some other incidents that seem to suggest the vicinity of fire; more particularly the occurrence of springs of high temperature, one at Badulla, one at Kitool, near Bintenne, another near Yavi Ooto, in the Veddah country, and a fourth at Cannea, near Trincomalie. I have heard of another near the Patipal Aar south of Batticaloa. The water in each is so pure and free from salts that the natives make use of it for all domestic purposes. Dr. Davy adverts to another indication of volcanic agency in the sudden and profound depth of the noble harbour at Trincomalie, which even close by the beach is said to have been hitherto unfathomed.

The Spaniards believed Ceylon to be volcanic; and ARGENSOLA, in his _Conquista de las Malucas_, Madrid, 1609, says it produced liquid bitumen and sulphur:--"Fuentes de betùn liquido y bolcanes de perpetuas llamas que arrojan entre las asperezas de la montaña losas de açufre."--Lib. v. p. 184. It is needless to say that this is altogether imaginary.]

_Gneiss_.--The great geological feature of the island is, however, the profusion of gneiss, and the various new forms arising from its disintegration. In the mountains, with the exception of occasional beds of dolomite, no more recent formations overlie it; from the period of its first upheaval, the gneiss has undergone no second submersion, and the soil which covers it in these lofty altitudes is formed almost entirely by its decay.

In the lower ranges of the hills, gigantic portions of gneiss rise conspicuously, so detached from the original chain and so rounded by the action of the atmosphere, aided by their concentric lamellation, that but for their prodigious dimensions, they might be regarded as boulders. Close under one of these cylindrical masses, 600 feet in height, and upwards of three miles in length, the town of Kornegalle, one of the ancient capitals of the island, has been built; and the great temple of Dambool, the most remarkable Buddhist edifice in Ceylon, is constructed under the hollow edge of another, its gilded roof being formed by the inverted arch of the natural stone. The tendency of the gneiss to assume these concentric and almost circular forms has been taken advantage of for this purpose by the Singhalese priests, and some of their most venerated temples are to be found under the shadow of the overarching strata, to the imperishable nature of which the priests point as symbolical of the eternal duration of their faith.[1]

[Footnote 1: The concentric lamellar strata of the gneiss sometimes extend with a radius so prolonged that slabs may be cut from them and used in substitution for beams of timber, and as such they are frequently employed in the construction of Buddhist temples. At Piagalla, on the road between Galle and Colombo, within about four miles of Caltura, there is a gneiss hill of this description on which a temple has been so erected. In this particular rock the garnets usually found in gneiss are replaced by rubies, and nothing can exceed the beauty of the hand-specimens procurable from a quarry close to the high road on the landward side; in which, however, the gems are in every case reduced to splinters.]

_Laterite or "Cabook_."--A peculiarity, which is one of the first to strike a stranger who lands at Galle or Colombo, is the bright red colour of the streets and roads, contrasting vividly with the verdure of the trees, and the ubiquity of the fine red dust which penetrates every crevice and imparts its own tint to every neglected article. Natives resident in these localities are easily recognisable elsewhere, by the general hue of their dress. This is occasioned by the prevalence along the western coast of _laterite_, or, as the Singhalese call it, _cabook_, a product of disintegrated gneiss, which being subjected to detrition communicates its hue to the soil.[1]

[Footnote 1: According to the _Mahawanso_ "Tamba-panni," one of those names by which Ceylon was anciently called, originated in an incident connected with the invasion of Wijayo, B.C. 543, whose followers, "exhausted by sea-sickness and faint from weakness, sat down at the spot where they had landed out of the vessels, supporting themselves on the palms of their hands pressed to the ground, whence the name of Tamba-pannyo, '_copper-palmed_,' from the colour of the soil. From this circumstance that wilderness obtained the name of Tamba-panni; and from the same cause also this renowned land became celebrated under that name."--TURNOUR'S _Mahawanso_, ch. vi. p. 50. From Tamba-panni came the Greek name for Ceylon, _Taprobane_. Mr. de Alwis has corrected an error in this passage of Mr. Turnour's translation; the word in the original, which he took for _Tamba-panniyo_, or "copper-palmed," being in reality _tamba-vanna_, or "copper-coloured." Colonel Forbes questions the accuracy of this derivation, and attributes the name to the _tamana_ trees; from the abundance of which he says many villages in Ceylon, as well as a district in southern India, have been similarly called. (_Eleven Years in Ceylon_, vol. i. p. 10.) I have not succeeded in discovering what tree is designated by this name, nor does it occur in MOON'S _List of Ceylon Plants_. On the southern coast of India a river, which flows from the ghats to the sea, passing Tinnevelly, is called Tambapanni. Tambapanni, as the designation of Ceylon, occurs in the inscription on the rock of Girnar in Guzerat, deciphered by Prinsep, containing an edict by Asoka relative to the medical administration of India for the relief both of man and beast, (_Asiat. Soc. Journ. Beng._ vol. vii. p. 158.)]

The transformation of gneiss into laterite in these localities has been attributed to the circumstance, that those sections of the rock which undergo transition exhibit grains of magnetic iron ore partially disseminated through them; and the phenomenon of the conversion has been explained not by recurrence to the ordinary conception of mere weathering, which is inadequate, but to the theory of catalytic action, regard being had to the peculiarity of magnetic iron when viewed in its chemical formula.[1] The oxide of iron thus produced communicates its colouring to the laterite, and in proportion as felspar and hornblende abound in the gneiss, the cabook assumes respectively a white or yellow hue. So ostensible is the series of mutations, that in ordinary excavations there is no difficulty in tracing a continuous connection without definite lines of demarcation between the soil and the laterite on the one hand, and the laterite and gneiss rock on the other.[2]

[Footnote 1: From a paper read to the Royal Physical Society of Edinburgh by the Rev. J.G. Macvicar, D.D.]

[Footnote 2: From a paper on the Geology of Ceylon, by Dr. Gardner, in the Appendix to Lee's translation of RIBEYRO'S _History of Ceylon_, p, 206. The earliest and one of the ablest essays on the geological system and mineralogy of Ceylon will be found in DAVY'S _Account of the Interior of Ceylon_, London, 1821. It has, however, been corrected and enlarged by recent investigators.]

The tertiary rocks which form such remarkable features in the geology of other countries are almost unknown in Ceylon; and the "clay-slate, Silurian, old red sandstone, carboniferous, new red sandstone, oolitic, and cretaceous systems" have not as yet been recognised in any part of the island.[1] Crystalline limestone in some places overlies the gneiss, and is worked for oeconomical purposes in the mountain districts where it occurs.[2]

[Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.]

[Footnote 2: In the maritime provinces lime for building is obtained by burning the coral and madrepore, which for this purpose is industriously collected by the fishermen during the intervals when the wind is off shore.]

Along the western coast, from Point-de-Galle to Chilaw, breccia is found near the shores, from the agglutination of corallines and shells mixed with sand, and the disintegrated particles of gneiss. These beds present an appearance very closely resembling a similar rock, in which human remains have been found imbedded, at the north-east of Guadaloupe, now in the British Museum.[1] Incorporated with them there are minute fragments of sapphires, rubies, and tourmaline, showing that the sand of which the breccia is composed has been washed down by the rivers from the mountain zone.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.]

NORTHERN PROVINCES.--_Coral Formation_.--But the principal scene of the most recent formations is the extreme north of the island, with the adjoining peninsula of Jaffna. Here the coral rocks abound far above high-water mark, and extend across the island where the land has been gradually upraised, from the eastern to the western shore. The fortifications of Jaffna were built by the Dutch, from blocks of breccia quarried far from the sea, and still exhibit, in their worn surface, the outline of the shells and corallines of which they mainly consist. The roads, in the absence of more solid substances, are metalled with the same material; as the only other rock which occurs is a loose description of conglomerate, similar to that at Adam's Bridge and Manaar.

The phenomenon of the gradual upheaval of these strata is sufficiently attested by the position in which they appear, and their altitude above high-water mark; but, in close contiguity with them, an equally striking evidence presents itself in the fact that, at various points of the western coast, between the island of Manaar and Karativoe, the natives, in addition to fishing for chank shells[1] in the sea, dig them up in large quantities from beneath the soil on the adjacent shores, in which they are deeply imbedded[2], the land having since been upraised.

[Footnote 1: _Turbinella rapa_, formerly known as _Voluta gravis_ used by the people of India to be sawn into bangles and anklets.]

[Footnote 2: In 1845 an antique iron anchor was found under the soil at the northwestern point of Jaffna, of such size and weight as to show that it must have belonged to a ship of much greater tonnage than any which the depth of water would permit to navigate the channel at the present day.]

The sand, which covers a vast extent of the peninsula of Jaffna, and in which the coco-nut and Palmyra-palm grow freely, has been carried by the currents from the coast of India, and either flung upon the northern beach in the winter months, or driven into the lake during the south-west monsoon, and thence washed on shore by the ripple, and distributed by the wind.

The arable soil of Jaffna is generally of a deep red colour, from the admixture of iron, and, being largely composed of lime from the comminuted coral, it is susceptible of the highest cultivation, and produces crops of great luxuriance. This tillage is carried on exclusively by irrigation from innumerable wells, into which the water rises fresh through the madrepore and sand; there being no streams in the district, unless those percolations can be so called which make their way underground, and rise through the sands on the margin of the sea at low water.

_Wells in the Coral Rock_.--These phenomena occur at Jaffna, in consequence of the rocks being magnesian limestone and coral, overlying a bed of sand, and in some places, where the soil is light, the surface of the ground is a hollow arch, so that it resounds as if a horse's weight were sufficient to crush it inwards. This is strikingly perceptible in the vicinity of the remarkable well at Potoor[1], on the west side of the road leading from Jaffna to Point Pedro, where the surface of the surrounding country is only about fifteen feet above the sea-level. The well, however, is upwards of 140 feet in depth; the water fresh at the surface, brackish lower down, and intensely salt below. According to the universal belief of the inhabitants, it is an underground pool, which communicates with the sea by a subterranean channel bubbling out on the shore near Kangesentorre, about seven miles to the north-west.

[Footnote 1: For the particulars of this singular well, see Vol. II. Pt. IX. ch. vi. p. 536.]

A similar subterranean stream is said to conduct to the sea from another singular well near Tillipalli, in sinking which the workmen, at the depth of fourteen feet, came to the ubiquitous coral, the crust of which gave way, and showed a cavern below containing the water they were in search of, with a depth of more than thirty-three feet. It is remarkable that the well at Tillipalli preserves its depth at all seasons alike, uninfluenced by rains or drought; and a steam-engine erected at Potoor, with the intention of irrigating the surrounding lands, failed to lower it in any perceptible degree.

Other wells, especially some near the coast, maintain their level with such uniformity as to be inexhaustible at any season, even after a succession of years of drought--a fact from which it may fairly be inferred that their supply is chiefly derived by percolation from the sea.[1]

[Footnote 1: DARWIN, in his admirable account of the coral formations of the Pacific and Indian oceans, has propounded a theory as to the abundance of fresh water in the atolls and islands on coral reefs, furnished by wells which ebb and flow with the tides. Assuming it to be impossible to separate salt from sea water by filtration, he suggests that the porous coral rock being permeated by salt water, the rain which falls on the surface must sink to the level of the surrounding sea, "and must accumulate there, displacing an equal bulk of sea water--and as the portion of the latter in the lower part of the great sponge-like mass rises and falls with the tides, so will the fresh water near the surface."--_Naturalist's Journal_, ch. xx. But subsequent experiments have demonstrated that the idea of separating the salt by filtration is not altogether imaginary; as Darwin seems to have then supposed; and Mr. WITT, in a remarkable paper _On a peculiar power possessed by Porous Media of removing matters from solution in water_, has since succeeded in showing that "water containing considerable quantities of saline matter in solution may, by merely percolating through great masses of porous strata during long periods, be gradually deprived of its salts _to such an extent as probably to render even sea-water fresh_."--_Philos. Mag_., 1856. Divesting the subject therefore of this difficulty, other doubts would appear to suggest themselves as to the applicability of Darwin's theory to coral formations in general. For instance, it might be supposed that rain falling on a substance already saturated with moisture, would flow off instead of sinking into it; and that being of less specific gravity than salt water, it would fail to "displace an equal bulk" of the latter. There are some extraordinary but well attested statements of a thin layer of fresh water being found on the surface of the sea, after heavy rains in the Bay of Bengal. (_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng_. vol. v. p. 239.) Besides, I fancy that in the majority of atolls and coral islands the quantity of rain which so small an area is calculated to intercept would be insufficient of itself to account for the extraordinary abundance of fresh water daily drawn from the wells. For instance, the superficial extent of each of the Laccadives is but two or three square miles, the surface soil resting on a crust of coral, beneath which is a stratum of sand; and yet on reaching the latter, fresh water flows in such profusion, that wells and large tanks for soaking coco-nut fibre are formed in any place by merely "breaking through the crust and taking out the sand."--_Madras Journal_, vol. xiv. It is curious that the abundant supply of water in these wells should have attracted the attention of the early navigators, and Cosmas Indicoplenstes, writing in the sixth century, speaks of the numerous small islands off the coast of Taprobane, with abundance of fresh water and coco-nut palms, although these islands rest on a bed of sand. (_Cosmas Ind_. ed. Thevenot, vol. i. p. 3, 20). It is remarkable that in the little island of Ramisseram, one of the chain which connects Adam's Bridge with the Indian continent, fresh water is found freely on sinking for it in the sand. But this is not the case in the adjacent island of Manaar, which participates in the geologic character of the interior of Ceylon. The fresh water in the Laccadive wells always fluctuates with the rise and fall of the tides. In some rare instances, as on the little island of Bitra, which is the smallest inhabited spot in the group, the water, though abundant, is brackish, but this is susceptible of an explanation quite consistent with the experiments of Mr. Witt, which require that the process of percolation shall be continued "during _long_ periods and through _great masses of porous strata_;" Darwin equally concedes that to keep the rain fresh when banked in, as he assumes, by the sea, the mass of madrepore must be "sufficiently thick to prevent mechanical admixture; and where the land consists of loose blocks of coral with open interstices, the water, if a well be dug, is brackish." Conditions analogous to all these particularised, present themselves at Jaffna, and seem to indicate that the extent to which fresh water is found there, is directly connected with percolation from the sea. The quantity of rain which annually falls is less than in England, being but thirty inches; whilst the average heat is highest in Ceylon, and the evaporation great in proportion. Throughout the peninsula, I am informed by Mr. Byrne, the Government surveyor of the district, that as a general rule "_all the wells are below the sea level_." It would be useless to sink them in the higher ground, where they could only catch surface water. The November rains fill them at once to the brim, but the water quickly subsides as the season becomes dry, and "_sinks to the uniform level, at which it remains fixed for the next nine or ten months_, unless when slightly affected by showers." "_No well below the sea level becomes dry of itself_," even in seasons of extreme and continued drought. But the contents do not vary with the tides, the rise of which is so trifling that the distance from the ocean, and the slowness of filtration, renders its fluctuations imperceptible.

On the other hand, the well of Potoor, the phenomena of which indicate its direct connection with the sea, by means of a fissure or a channel beneath the arch of magnesian limestone, rises and falls a few inches in the course of every twelve hours. Another well at Navokeiry, a short distance from it, does the same, whilst the well at Tillipalli is entirely unaffected as to its level by any rains, and exhibits no alteration of its depths on either monsoon. ADMIRAL FITZROY, in his _Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, the expedition to which Mr. Darwin was attached, adverts to the phenomenon in connection with the fresh water found in the Coral Islands, and the rise and fall of the wells, and the flow and ebb of the tide. He advances the theory propounded by Darwin of the retention of the river-water, which he says, "does not mix with the salt water which surrounds it except at the edges of the land. The flowing tide pushes on every side, the mixed soil being very porous, and causes the water to rise: when the tide falls, the fresh water sinks also. _A sponge full of fresh water placed gently in a basin of salt water, will not part with its contents for a length of time if left untouched_, and the water in the middle of the sponge will be found untainted by salt for many days: perhaps much longer if tried."--Vol. i. p. 365. In a perfectly motionless medium the experiment of the sponge may no doubt be successful to the extent mentioned by Admiral Fitzroy; and so the rain-water imbibed by a coral rock might for a length of time remain fresh where it came into no contact with the salt. But the disturbance caused by the tides, and the partial intermixture admitted by Admiral Fitzroy, must by reiterated occurrence tend in time to taint the fresh water which is affected by the movement: and this is demonstrable even by the test of the sponge; for I find that on charging one with coloured fluid, and immersing it in a vessel containing water perfectly pure, no intermixture takes place so long as the pure water is undisturbed; but on causing an artificial tide, by gradually withdrawing and as gradually replacing a portion of the surrounding contents of the basin, the tinted water in the sponge becomes displaced and disturbed, and in the course of a few ebbs and flows its escape is made manifest by the quantity of colour which it imparts to the surrounding fluid.]

An idea of the general aspect of Ceylon will be formed from what has here been described. Nearly four parts of the island are undulating plains, slightly diversified by offsets from the mountain system which entirely covers the remaining fifth. Every district, from the depths of the valleys to the summits of the highest hills, is clothed with perennial foliage; and even the sand-drifts, to the ripple on the sea line, are carpeted with verdure, and sheltered from the sunbeams by the cool shadows of the palm groves.

SOIL.--But the soil, notwithstanding this wonderful display of spontaneous vegetation, is not responsive to systematic cultivation, and is but imperfectly adapted for maturing a constant succession of seeds and cereal productions.[1] Hence arose the disappointment which beset the earliest adventurers who opened plantations of coffee in the hills, on discovering that after the first rapid development of the plants, delicacy and languor ensued, which were only to be corrected by returning to the earth, in the form of manures, those elements with which it had originally been but sparingly supplied, and which were soon exhausted by the first experiments in cultivation.

[Footnote 1: See a paper in the Journal of Agriculture, for March, 1857, Edin.: on _Tropical Cultivation and its Limits_, by Dr. MACVICAR.]

_Patenas_.--The only spots hitherto found suitable for planting coffee, are those covered by the ancient forests of the mountain zone; and one of the most remarkable phenomena in the oeconomic history of the island, is the fact that the grass lands on the same hills, closely adjoining the forests and separated from them by no visible line save the growth of the trees, although they seem to be identical in the nature of the soil, have hitherto proved to be utterly insusceptible of reclamation or culture by the coffee planter.[1] These verdant openings, to which the natives have given the name of _patenas_, generally occur about the middle elevation of the hills, the summits and the hollows being covered with the customary growth of timber trees, which also fringe the edges of the mountain streams that trickle down these park-like openings. The forest approaches boldly to the very edge of a "patena," not disappearing gradually or sinking into a growth of underwood, but stopping abruptly and at once, the tallest trees forming a fence around the avoided spot, as if they enclosed an area of solid stone. These sunny expanses vary in width from a few yards to many thousands of acres; in the lower ranges of the hills they are covered with tall lemon-grass _(Andropogon schoenanthus)_ of which the oppressive perfume and coarse texture, when full grown, render it distasteful to cattle, which will only crop the delicate braird that springs after the surface has been annually burnt by the Kandyans. Two stunted trees, alone, are seen to thrive in these extraordinary prairies, _Careya arborea_ and _Emblica officinalis_, and these only below an altitude of 4000 feet; above this, the lemon-grass is superseded by harder and more wiry species; but the earth is still the same, a mixture of decomposed quartz largely impregnated with oxide of iron, but wanting the phosphates and other salts which are essential to highly organised vegetation.[2] The extent of the patena land is enormous in Ceylon, amounting to millions of acres; and it is to be hoped that the complaints which have hitherto been made by the experimental cultivators of coffee in the Kandyan provinces may hereafter prove exaggerated, and that much that has been attributed to the poverty of the soil may eventually be traced to deficiency of skill on the part of the early planters.

[Footnote 1: Since the above was written, attempts have been made, chiefly by natives to plant coffee on patena land. The result is a conviction that the cultivation is practicable, by the use of manures from the beginning; whereas forest land is capable, for three or four years at least, of yielding coffee without any artificial enrichment of the soil.]

[Footnote 2: HUMBOLDT is disposed to ascribe the absence of trees in the vast grassy plains of South America, to "the destructive custom of setting fire to the woods, when the natives want to convert the soil into pasture: when during the lapse of centuries grasses and plants have covered the surface with a carpet, the seeds of trees can no longer germinate and fix themselves in the earth, although birds and winds carry them continually from the distant forests into the Savannahs."--_Narrative_, vol. i. ch. vi. p. 242.]

The natives in the same lofty localities find no deficient returns in the crops of rice, which they raise in the ravines and hollows, into which the earth from above has been washed by the periodical rains; but the cultivation of rice is so entirely dependent on the presence of water, that no inference can be fairly drawn as to the quality of the soil from the abundance of its harvest.

The fields on which rice is grown in these mountains form one of the most picturesque and beautiful objects in the country of the Kandyans. Selecting an angular recess where two hills converge, they construct a series of terraces, raised stage above stage, and retiring as they ascend along the slope of the acclivity, up which they are carried as high as the soil extends.[1] Each terrace is furnished with a low ledge in front, behind which the requisite depth of water is retained during the germination of the seed, and what is superfluous is permitted to trickle down to the one below it. In order to carry on this peculiar cultivation the streams are led along the level of the hills, often from a distance of many miles, with a skill and perseverance for which the natives of these mountains have attained a great renown.

[Footnote 1: The conversion of the land into these hanging farms is known in Ceylon as "assuedamizing," a term borrowed from the Kandyan vernacular, in which the word "assuedamé" implies the process above described.]

In the lowlands to the south, the soil partakes of the character of the hills from whose detritus it is to a great extent formed. In it rice is the chief article produced, and for its cultivation the disintegrated laterite (_cabook_), when thoroughly irrigated, is sufficiently adapted. The seed time in the southern section of the island is dependent on the arrival of the rains in November and May, and hence the mountains and the maritime districts at their base enjoy two harvests in each year--the _Maha_, which is sown about July and August, and reaped in December and January, the _Yalla_ which is sown in spring, and reaped from the 15th of July to the 20th September. But owing to the different description of seed sown in particular localites, and the extent to which they are respectively affected by the rains, the times of sowing and harvest vary considerably on different sides of the island.[1]

[Footnote 1: The reaping of other descriptions of grain besides rice occurs at various periods of the year according to the locality.]

In the north, where the influence of the monsoons is felt with less force and regularity, and where, to counteract their uncertainty, the rain is collected in reservoirs, a wider discretion is left to the husbandman in the choice of season for his operations.[1] Two crops of grain, however, are the utmost that is taken from the land, and in many instances only one. The soil near the coast is light and sandy, but in the great central districts of Neuera-kalawa and the Wanny, there is found in the midst of the forests a dark vegetable mould, in which in former times rice was abundantly grown by the aid of those prodigious artificial works for irrigation which still form one of the wonders of the island. Many of the tanks, though partially in ruins, cover an area from ten to fifteen miles in circumference. They are now generally broken and decayed; the waters which would fertilise a province are allowed to waste themselves in the sands, and hundreds of square miles capable of furnishing food for all the inhabitants of Ceylon are abandoned to solitude and malaria, whilst rice for the support of the non-agricultural population is annually imported from the opposite coast of India.

[Footnote 1: This peculiarity of the north of Ceylon was noticed by the Chinese traveller FA HIAN, who visited the island in the fourth century, and says of the country around Anarajapoora: "L'ensemencement des champs est suivant la volonté des gens; il n'y a point de temps pour cela."--_Fo[)e] Kou[)e] Ki_; p. 332.]

_Talawas_.--In these districts of the lowlands, especially on the eastern coast of the island, and in the country watered by the Mahawelli-ganga and the other great rivers which flow towards the Bay of Bengal and the magnificent estuary of Trincomalie, there are open glades which diversify the forest scenery somewhat resembling the grassy patenas in the hills, but differing from them in the character of their soil and vegetation. These park-like meadows, or, as the natives call them, "talawas," vary in extent from one to a thousand acres. They are belted by the surrounding woods, and studded with groups of timber and sometimes with single trees of majestic dimensions. Through these pastures the deer troop in herds within gunshot, bounding into the nearest cover when disturbed.

Lower still and immediately adjoining the sea-coast, the broken forest gives place to brushwood, with here and there an assemblage of dwarf shrubs; but as far as the eye can reach, there is one vast level of impenetrable jungle, broken only by the long sweep of salt marshes which form lakes in the rainy season, but are dry between the monsoons, and crusted with crystals that glitter like snow in the sunshine.

On the western side of the island the rivers have formed broad alluvial plains, in which the Dutch attempted to grow sugar. The experiment has been often resumed since; but even here the soil is so defective, that the cost of artificially enriching it has hitherto been a serious obstruction to success commercially, although in one or two instances, plantations on a small scale have succeeded to a certain extent.

METALS.--The plutonic rocks of Ceylon are but slightly metalliferous, and hitherto their veins and deposits have been but imperfectly examined. The first successful survey attempted by the Government was undertaken during the administration of Viscount Torrington, who, in 1847, commissioned Dr. Gygax to proceed to the hill district south of Adam's Peak, and furnish a report on its products. His investigations extended from Ratnapoora, in a south-eastward direction, to the mountains which overhang Bintenne, but the results obtained did not greatly enlarge the knowledge previously possessed. He established the existence of _tin_ in the alluvium along the base of the mountains to the eastward towards Edelgashena; but so circumstanced, owing to the flow of the Walleway river, that, without lowering its level, the metal could not be extracted with advantage. The position in which it occurs is similar to that in which tin ore presents itself in Saxony; and along with it, the natives, when searching for gems, discover garnets, corundum, white topazes, zircon, and tourmaline.

_Gold_ is found in minute particles at Gettyhedra, and in the beds of the Maha Oya and other rivers flowing towards the west.[1] But the quantity hitherto discovered has been too trivial to reward the search. The early inhabitants of the island were not ignorant of its presence; but its occurrence on a memorable occasion, as well as that of silver and copper, is recorded in the Mahawanso as a miraculous manifestation, which signalised the founding of one of the most renowned shrines at the ancient capital.[2]

[Footnote 1: Ruanwellé, a fort about forty miles distant from Colombo, derives its name from the sands of the river which flows below it,--rang-welle, "golden sand." "Rang-galla," in the central province, is referable to the same root--the rock of gold.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso,_ ch. xxiii. p. 166, 167.]

_Nickel_ and _cobalt_ appear in small quantities in Saffragam, and the latter, together with _rutile_ (an oxide of titanium) and _wolfram_, might find a market in China for the colouring of porcelain.[1] _Tellurium_, another rare and valuable metal, hitherto found only in Transylvania and the Ural, has likewise been discovered in these mountains, _Manganese_ is abundant, and _Iron_ occurs in the form of magnetic iron ore, titanite, chromate, yellow hydrated, per-oxide and iron pyrites. In most of these, however, the metal is scanty, and the ores of little comparative value, except for the extraction of manganese and chrome. "But there is another description of iron ore," says Dr. Gygax, in his official report to the Ceylon Government, "which is found in vast abundance, brown and compact, generally in the state of carbonate, though still blended with a little chrome, and often molybdena. It occurs in large masses and veins, one of which extends for a distance of fifteen miles; from it millions of tons might be smelted, and when found adjacent to fuel and water-carriage, it might be worked to a profit. The quality of the iron ore found in Ceylon is singularly fine; it is easily smelted, and so pure when reduced as to resemble silver. The rough ore produces from _thirty_ to _seventy-five_ per cent., and on an average fully _fifty_. The iron wrought from it requires no puddling, and, converted into steel, it cuts like a diamond. The metal could be laid down in Colombo at £6 per ton, even supposing the ore to be brought thither for smelting, and prepared with English coal; but _anthracite_ being found upon the spot, it could be used in the proportion of three to one of the British coal; and the cost correspondingly reduced."

[Footnote 1: The _Asiatic Annual Register_ for 1799 contains the following:--

"_Extract from a letter from Colombo, dated 26th Oct. 1798_.

"A discovery has been lately made here of a very rich mine of _quicksilver,_ about six miles from this place. The appearances are very promising, for a handful of the earth on the surface will, by being washed, produce the value of a rupee. A guard is set over it, and accounts sent express to the Madras Government."--P. 53. See also PERCIVAL'S _Ceylon_, p. 539.

JOINVILLE, in a MS, essay on _The Geology of Ceylon_, now in the library of the East India Company, says that near Trincomalie there is "un sable noir, composé de détriments de trappe et de cristaux de fer, _dans lequel on trouve par le lavage beaucoup de mercure_."]

Remains of ancient furnaces are met with in all directions precisely similar to those still in use amongst the natives. The Singhalese obtain the ore they require without the trouble of mining; seeking a spot where the soil has been loosened by the latest rains, they break off a sufficient quantity, which, in less than three hours, they convert into iron by the simplest possible means. None of their furnaces are capable of smelting more than twenty pounds of ore, and yet this quantity yields from seven to ten pounds of good metal.

The _anthracite_ alluded to by Dr. Gygax is found in the southern range of hills near Nambepane, in close proximity to rich veins of _plumbago_, which are largely worked in the same district, and the quantity of the latter annually exported from Ceylon exceeds a thousand tons. _Molybdena_ is found in profusion dispersed through many rocks in Saffragam, and it occurs in the alluvium in grey scales, so nearly resembling plumbago as to be commonly mistaken for it. _Kaolin_, called by the natives _Kirimattie_, appears at Neuera-ellia at Hewahette, Kaduganawa, and in many of the higher ranges as well as in the low country near Colombo; its colour is so clear as to suit for the manufacture of porcelain[1]; but the difficulty and cost of carriage render it as yet unavailing for commerce, and the only use to which it has hitherto been applied is to serve for whitewash instead of lime.

[Footnote 1: The kaolin of Ceylon, according to an analysis in 1847, consists of--

Pure kaolin 70.0 Silica 26.0 Molybdena and iron oxide 4.0 ____ 100.0

In the _Ming-she_, or history of the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368-1643, by Chan-ting-yuh, "pottery-stone" is; enumerated among the imports into China from Ceylon.--B. cccxxvi. p. 5.]

_Nitre_ has long been known to exist in Ceylon, where the localities in which it occurs are similar to those in Brazil. In Saffragam alone there are upwards of sixty caverns known to the natives, from which it may be extracted, and others exist in various parts of the island, where the abundance of wood to assist in its lixiviation would render that process easy and profitable. Yet so sparingly has this been hitherto attempted, that even for purposes of refrigeration, crude saltpetre is still imported from India.[1]

[Footnote 1: The mineralogy of Ceylon has hitherto undergone no scientific scrutiny, nor have its mineral productions been arranged in any systematic and comprehensive catalogue. Specimens are to be found in abundance in the hands of native dealers; but from indifference or caution they express their inability to afford adequate information as to their locality, their geological position, or even to show with sufficient certainty that they belong to the island. Dr. Gygax, as the results of some years spent in exploring different districts previous to 1847, was enabled to furnish a list of but thirty-seven species, the site of which he had determined by personal inspection. These were:--

1. Rock crystal Abundant. 2. Iron quartz Saffragam. 3. Common quartz Abundant. 4. Amethyst Galle Back, Caltura. 5. Garnet Abundant. 6. Cinnamon stone Belligam. 7. Harmotome St. Lucia, Colombo. 8. Hornblende Abundant. 9. Hypersthene Ditto. 10. Common corundum Badulla. 11. Ruby Ditto and Saffragam. 12. Chrysoberyl Ratganga, North Saffragam. 13. Pleonaste Badulla. 14. Zircon Wallawey-ganga, Saffragam. 15. Mica Abundant. 16. Adular Patna Hills, North-east. 17. Common felspar Abundant. 18. Green felspar Kandy. 19. Albite Melly Matté. 20. Chlorite Kandy. 21. Pinite Patna Hills. 22. Black tourmaline Neuera-ellia. 23. Calespar Abundant. 24. Bitterspar Ditto. 25. Apatite Galle Back. 26. Fluorspar Ditto. 27. Chiastolite Mount Lavinia. 28. Iron pyrites Peradenia. 29. Magnetic iron pyrites Ditto, Rajawelle. 30. Brown iron ore Abundant. 31. Spathose iron ore Galle Back. 32. Manganese Saffragam. 33. Molybden glance Abundant. 34. Tin ore Saffragam. 35. Arseniate of nickel Ditto. 36. Plumbago Morowa Corle. 37. Epistilbite St. Lucia.]

GEMS.--But the chief interest which attaches to the mountains and rocks of this region, arises from the fact that they contain those mines of _precious stones_ which from time immemorial have conferred renown on Ceylon. The ancients celebrated the gems as well as the pearls of "Taprobane;" the tales of mariners returning from their eastern expeditions supplied to the story-tellers of the Arabian Nights their fables of the jewels of "Serendib;" and the travellers of the Middle Ages, on returning to Europe, told of the "sapphires, topazes, amethysts, garnets, and other costly stones" of Ceylon, and of the ruby which belonged to the king of the island, "a span in length, without a flaw, and brilliant beyond description."[1]

[Footnote 1: _Travels of_ MARCO POLO, _a Venetian, in the Thirteenth Century_, Lond. 1818.]

The extent to which gems are still found is sufficient to account for the early traditions of their splendour and profusion; and fabulous as this story of the ruby of the Kandyan kings may be, the abundance of gems in Saffragam has given to the capital of the district the name of _Ratnapoora_, which means literally "the city of rubies."[1] They are not, however, confined to this quarter alone, but quantities are still found on the western plains between Adam's Peak and the sea, at Neuera-ellia, in Oovah, at Kandy, at Mattelle in the central province, and at Ruanwelli near Colombo, at Matura, and in the beds of the rivers eastwards towards the ancient Mahagam.

[Footnote 1: In the vicinity of Ratnapoora there are to be obtained masses of quartz of the most delicate rose colour. Some pieces, which were brought to me in Colombo, were of extraordinary beauty; and I have reason to believe that it can be obtained in pieces large enough to be used as slabs for tables, or formed into vases and columns, I may observe that similar pieces are to be found in the south of Ireland, near Cork.]

But the localities which chiefly supply the Ceylon gems are the alluvial plains at the foot of the stupendous hills of Saffragam, in which the detritus of the rocks has been carried down and intercepted by the slight elevations that rise at some distance from the base of the mountains. The most remarkable of these gem-bearing deposits is in the flat country around Ballangodde, south-east of Ratnapoora; but almost every valley in communication with the rocks of the higher ranges contains stones of more or less value, and the beds of the rivers flowing southward from the mountain chain are so rich in comminuted fragments of rubies, sapphires, and garnets[1], that their sands in some places are used by lapidaries in polishing the softer stones, and in sawing the elephants' grinders into plates. The cook of a government officer at Galle recently brought to him a ruby about the size of a small pea, which he had taken from the crop of a fowl.

[Footnote 1: Mr. BAKER, in a work entitled _The Rifle and the Hound in Ceylon_, thus describes the sands of the Manic Ganga, near the ruins of Mahagam, in the south-eastern extremity of the island:--"The sand was composed of mica, quartz, sapphire, ruby, and jacinth; but the large proportion of ruby sand was so extraordinary that it seemed to rival Sinbad's story of the vale of gems. The whole of this was valueless, but the appearance of the sand was very inviting, as the shallow stream in rippling over it magnified the tiny gems into stones of some magnitude. I passed an hour in vainly searching for a ruby worth collecting, but the largest did not exceed the size of a mustard seed."--BAKER'S _Rifle and Hound in Ceylon_, p. 181.]

Of late years considerable energy has been shown by those engaged in the search for gems; neglected districts have been explored, and new fields have been opened up at such places as Karangodde and Weraloopa, whence stones have been taken of unusual size and value.

It is not, however, in the recent strata of gravel, nor in those now in process of formation, that the natives search for gems. They penetrate these to the depth of from ten to twenty feet, in order to reach a lower deposit distinguished by the name of _Nellan_, in which the objects of their search are found. This is of so early a formation that it underlies the present beds of rivers, and is generally separated from them or from the superincumbent gravel by a hard crust (called _Kadua_), a few inches in thickness, and so consolidated as to have somewhat the appearance of laterite, or of sun-burnt brick. The nellan is for the most part horizontal, but occasionally it is raised into an incline as it approaches the base of the hills. It appears to have been deposited previous to the eruption of the basalt, on which in some places it reclines, and to have undergone some alteration from the contact. It consists of water-worn pebbles firmly imbedded in clay, and occasionally there occur large lumps of granite and gneiss, in the hollows under which, as well as in "pockets" in the clay (which from their shape the natives denominate "elephants' footsteps") gems are frequently found in groups as if washed in by the current.

The persons who devote themselves to this uncertain pursuit are chiefly Singhalese, and the season selected by them for "gemming" is between December and March, when the waters are low.[1] The poorer and least enterprising adventurers betake themselves to the beds of streams, but the most certain though the most costly course is to sink pits in the adjacent plains, which are consequently indented with such traces of recent explorers. The upper gravel is pierced, the covering crust is reached and broken through, and the nellan being shovelled into conical baskets and washed to free it from the sand, the residue is carefully searched for whatever rounded crystals and minute gems it may contain.

[Footnote 1: A very interesting account of _Gems and Gem Searching_, by Mr. WM. STEWART, appeared in the _Colombo Observer_ for June, 1855.]

It is strongly characteristic of the want of energy in the Singhalese, that although for centuries those alluvial plains and watercourses have been searched without ceasing, no attempt appears to have been made to explore the rocks themselves, in the debris of which the gems have been brought down by the rivers. Dr. Gygax says: "I found at Hima Pohura, on the south-eastern decline of the Pettigalle-Kanda, about the middle of the descent, a stratum of grey granite containing, with iron pyrites and molybdena, innumerable rubies from one-tenth to a fourth of an inch in diameter, and of a fine rose colour, but split and falling to powder. It is not an isolated bed of minerals, but a regular stratum extending probably to the same depth and distance as the other granite formations. I followed it as far as was practicable for close examination, but everywhere in the lower part of the valley I found it so decomposed that the hammer sunk in the rock, and even bamboos were growing on it. On the higher ground near some small round hills which intercept it, I found the rubies changed into brown corundum. Upon the hills themselves the trace was lost, and instead of a stratum there was merely a wild chaos of blocks of yellow granite. I carefully examined all the minerals which this stratum contains,--felspar, mica, and quartz molybdena, and iron pyrites,--and I found all similar to those I had previously got adhering to rough rubies offered for sale at Colombo. _I firmly believe that in such strata the rubies of Ceylon are originally found_, and that those in the white and blue clay at Ballangodde and Ratnapoora are but secondary deposits. I am further inclined to believe that these extend over the whole island, although often intercepted and changed in their direction by the rising of the yellow granite." It is highly probable that the finest rubies are to be found in them, perfect and unchanged by decomposition; and that they are to be obtained by opening a regular mine in the rock like the ruby mine of Badakshan in Bactria described by Sir Alexander Burnes. Dr. Gygax adds that having often received the minerals of this stratum with the crystals perfect, he has reason to believe that places are known to the natives where such mines might be opened with confidence of success.

Rubies both crystalline and amorphous are also found in a particular stratum of dolomite at Bullatotte and Badulla, in which there is a peculiar copper-coloured mica with metallic lustre. _Star rubies_, the "asteria" of Pliny (so called from their containing a movable six-rayed star), are to be had at Ratnapoora and for very trifling sums. The blue tinge which detracts from the value of the pure ruby, whose colour should resemble "pigeon's blood," is removed by the Singhalese, by enveloping the stone in the lime of a calcined shell and exposing it to a high heat. _Spinel_ of extremely beautiful colours is found in the bed of the Mahawelli-ganga at Kandy, and from the locality it has obtained the name of _Candite_.

It is strange that although the _sapphire_ is found in all this region in greater quantity than the ruby, it has never yet been discovered in the original matrix, and the small fragments which sometimes occur in dolomite show that there it is but a deposit. From its exquisite colour and the size in which it is commonly found, it forms by far the most valuable gem of the island. A piece which was dug out of the alluvium within a few miles of Ratnapoora in 1853, was purchased by a Moor at Colombo, in whose hands it was valued at upwards of four thousand pounds.

The original site of the _oriental topaz_ is equally unknown with that of the sapphire. The Singhalese rightly believe them to be the same stone only differing in colour, and crystals are said to be obtained with one portion yellow and the other blue.

_Garnets_ of inferior quality are common in the gneiss, but finer ones are found in the hornblende rocks.

_Cinnamon-stone_ (which is properly a variety of garnet) is so extremely abundant, that vast rocks containing it in profusion exist in many places, especially in the alluvium around Matura; and at Belligam, a few miles east from Point-de-Galle, a vast detached rock is so largely composed of cinnamon-stones that it is carried off in lumps for the purpose of extracting and polishing them.

The _Cat's-eye_ is one of the jewels of which the Singhalese are especially proud, from a belief that it is only found in their island; but in this I apprehend they are misinformed, as specimens of equal merit have been brought from Quilon and Cochin on the southern coast of Hindostan. The cat's-eye is a greenish translucent quartz, and when cut _en cabochon_ it presents a moving internal reflection which is ascribed to the presence of filaments of asbestos. Its perfection is estimated by the natives in proportion to the narrowness and sharpness of the ray and the pure olive-tint of the ground over which it plays.

_Amethysts_ are found in the gneiss, and some discoloured though beautiful specimens in syenite; they are too common to be highly esteemed. The "Matura Diamonds," which are largely used by the native jewellers, consist of zircon, found in the syenite not only uncoloured, but also of pink and yellow tints, the former passing for rubies.

But one of the prettiest though commonest gems in the island is the "Moon-stone," a variety of pearly adularia presenting chatoyant rays when simply polished. They are so abundant that the finest specimens may be bought for a few shillings. These, with _aqua marina_, a bad description of _opal rock crystal_ in extremely large pieces, _tourmaline_, and a number of others of no great value, compose the list of native gems procurable in Ceylon.[1] Diamonds, emeralds, agates, carnelians, opal and turquoise, when they are exhibited by the natives, have all been imported from India.

[Footnote 1: Caswini and some of the Arabian geographers assert that the diamond is found at Adam's Peak; but this is improbable, as there is no formation resembling the _cascalhao_ of Brazil or the diamond conglomerate of Golconda. If diamonds were offered for sale in Ceylon, in the time of the Arab navigators, they must have been brought thither from India, (_Journ. As. Soc. Beng._ xiii. 633.)]

During the dynasty of the Kandyan sovereigns, the right of digging for gems was a royalty reserved jealously for the King; and the inhabitants of particular villages were employed in their search under the superintendence of hereditary officers, with the rank of "Mudianse." By the British Government the monopoly was early abolished as a source of revenue, and no license is now required by the jewel-hunters.

Great numbers of persons of the worst-regulated habits are constantly engaged in this exciting and precarious trade; and serious demoralisation is engendered amongst the villagers by the idle and dissolute adventurers who resort to Saffragam. Systematic industry suffers, and the cultivation of the land is frequently neglected whilst its owners are absorbed in these speculative and tantalising occupations.

The products of their searches are disposed of to the Moors, who resort to Saffragam from the low country, carrying up cloth and salt, to be exchanged for gems and coffee. At the annual Buddhist festival of the Pera-hara, a jewel-fair is held at Ratnapoora, to which the purchasers resort from all parts of Ceylon. Of late years, however, the condition of the people in Saffragam has so much improved that it has become difficult to obtain the finest jewels, the wealthier natives preferring to retain them as investments: they part with them reluctantly, and only for gold, which they find equally convenient for concealment.[1]

[Footnote 1: So eager is the appetite for hoarding in these hills, that eleven rupees (equal to twenty-two shillings) have frequently been given for a sovereign.]

The lapidaries who cut and polish the stones are chiefly Moors, but their tools are so primitive, and their skill so deficient, that a gem generally loses in value by having passed through their hands. The inferior kinds, such as cinnamon-stones, garnets, and tourmaline, are polished by ordinary artists at Kandy, Matura, and Galle; but the more expert lapidaries, who cut rubies and sapphires, reside chiefly at Caltura and Colombo.

As a general rule, the rarer gems are less costly in Europe than in Colombo. In London and Paris the quantities brought from all parts of the world are sufficient to establish something like a market value; but, in Ceylon, the supply is so uncertain that the price is always regulated at the moment by the rank and wealth of the purchaser. Strange to say, too, there is often an unwillingness even amongst the Moorish dealers to sell the rarest and finest specimens; those who are wealthy being anxious to retain them, and few but stones of secondary value are offered for sale. Besides, the Rajahs and native Princes of India, amongst whom the passion for jewels is universal, are known to give such extravagant prices that the best are always sent to them from Ceylon.

From the Custom House returns it is impossible to form any calculation as to the value of the precious stones exported from the island. A portion only appears, even of those sent to England, the remainder being carried away by private parties. Of the total number found, one-fourth is probably purchased by the natives themselves, more than one-half is sent to the Continent of India, and the remainder represents the export to Europe. Computed in this way, the quantity of precious stones found in the island may be estimated at 10,000_l_. per annum.

RIVERS.--From the mountainous configuration of the country and the abundance of the rains, the rivers are large and numerous in the south of the island--ten of considerable magnitude flowing into the sea on the west coast, between Point-de-Galle and Manaar, and a still greater number, though inferior in volume, on the east. In the low country, where the heat is intense and evaporation proportionate, they derive little of their supply from springs; and the passing showers which fall scarcely more than replace the moisture drawn by the sun from the parched and thirsty soil.

Hence in the plains there are comparatively few rivulets or running streams; the rivers there flow in almost solitary lines to the sea; and the beds of their minor affluents serve only to conduct to them the torrents which descend at the change of each monsoon, their channels at other times being exhausted and dry. But in their course through the hills, and the broken ground at their base, they are supplied by numerous feeders, which convey to them the frequent showers that fall in high altitudes. Hence their tracks are through some of the noblest scenery in the world; rushing through ravines and glens, and falling over precipitous rocks in the depths of wooded valleys, they exhibit a succession of rapids, cataracts, and torrents, unsurpassed in magnificence and beauty. On reaching the plains, the boldness of their march and the graceful outline of their sweep are indicative of the little obstruction opposed by the sandy and porous soil through which they flow. Throughout their entire course dense forests shade their banks, and, as they approach the sea, tamarisks and over-arching mangroves mark where their waters mingle with the tide.

Of all the Ceylon rivers, the most important by far is the Mahawelli-ganga--the Ganges of Ptolemy--which, rising in the south near Adam's Peak, traverses more than one-third of the mountain zone[1], drains upwards of four thousand square miles, and flows into the sea by a number of branches, near the noble harbour of Trincomalie. The following table gives a comparative view of the magnitude of the rivers that rise in the hills, and of the extent of the low country traversed by each of them:--

Square Miles Square Miles Length of Embouchure. drained in drained in the Course of Mountain low Country, the main Zone. about Stream.

Mahawelii-ganga near Trincomalie 1782 2300 134 Kirinde at Mahagan 34 300 62 Wellawey near Hambangtotte 263 500 69 Neivalle at Matura 64 200 42 (Three Rivers) near Tangalle 56 200 Gindura near Galle 180 200 59 Kalu-oya at Caltura 841 300 72 Kalany Colombo 692 200 84 The Kaymel or Mahaoya near Negombo 253 200 68 Dederoo-oya near Chilaw 38 700 70 ---------------------------- 4212 5100

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 12, for a definition of what constitutes the "mountain zone" of Ceylon.]

In addition to these, there are a number of large rivers which belong entirely to the plains in the northern and south-eastern portions of the island, the principal of which are the Arive and the Moderegam, which flow into the Gulf of Manaar; the Kala-oya and the Kanda-lady, which empty themselves into the Bay of Calpentyn; the Maniek or Kattragam, and the Koombookgam, opposite to the Little Bass rocks and the Naveloor, the Chadawak, and Arookgam, south of Batticaloa. The extent of country drained by these latter streams is little short of thirteen thousand square miles.

Very few of the rivers of Ceylon are navigable, and these only by canoes and flat-bottomed paddy boats, which ascend some of the largest for short distances, till impeded by the rapids, occasioned by rocks in the lowest range of the hills. In this way the Niwalle at Matura can be ascended for about fifteen miles, as far as Wellehara; the Kalu-ganga can be traversed from Caltura to Ratnapoora; the Bentotte river for sixteen miles to Pittagalla; and the Kalany from Colombo to the foot of the mountains near Ambogammoa. The Mahawelli-ganga is navigable from Trincomalie to within a short distance of Kanda[1]; and many of the lesser streams, the Kirinde and Wellawey in the south, and the Kaymel, the Dedroo-oya, and the Aripo river on the west of the island, are used for short distances by boats.

[Footnote 1: For an account of the capabilities of the Mahawelli-ganga, as regards navigation, see BROOKE'S _Report, Roy. Geog. Journ._ vol. iii. p. 223. and _post_, Vol. II. p. 423.]

All these streams are liable, during the fury of the monsoons, to be surcharged with rain till they overflow their banks, and spread in wide inundations over the level country. On the subsidence of these waters, the intense heat of the sun acting on the surface they leave deserted, produces a noxious and fatal malaria. Hence the rivers of Ceylon present the curious anomaly, that whilst the tanks and reservoirs of the interior diffuse a healthful coolness around, the running water of the rivers is prolific of fevers; and in some seasons so deadly is the pestilence that the Malabar coolies, as well as the native peasantry, betake themselves to precipitate flight.[1]

[Footnote 1: It has been remarked along the Mahawelli-ganga, a few miles from Kandy, that during the deadly season, after the subsidence of the rains, the jungle fever generally attacks one face of the hills through which it winds, leading the opposite side entirely exempted, as if the poisonous vapour, being carried by the current of air, affected only those aspects against which it directly impinged.]

Few of the larger rivers have been bridged, except those which intersect the great high roads from Point-de-Galle to Colombo, and thence to Kandy. Near the sea this has been effected by timber platforms, sustained by piles sufficiently strong to withstand the force of the floods at the change of each monsoon. A bridge of boats connects each side of the Kalany, and on reaching the Mahawelli-ganga at Peradenia, one of the most picturesque structures on the island is a noble bridge of a single arch, 205 feet in span, chiefly constructed of satin-wood, and thrown across the river by General Fraser in 1832.

On reaching the margin of the sea, an appearance is presented by the outline of the coast, near the embouchures of the principal rivers, which is very remarkable. It is common to both sides of the island, though it has attained its greatest development on the east. In order to comprehend its formation, it is necessary to observe that Ceylon lies in the course of the ocean currents in the Bay of Bengal, which run north or south according to the prevalence of the monsoon, and with greater or less velocity in proportion to its force at particular periods.

In the beginning and during the strength of the northeast monsoon the current sets strongly along the coast of Coromandel to the southward, a portion of it frequently entering Palks Bay to the north of Ceylon; but the main stream keeping invariably to the east of the island, runs with a velocity of from one and a half to two miles an hour, and after passing the Great Bass, it keeps its course seaward. At other times, after the monsoon has spent its violence, the current is weak, and follows the line of the land to the westward as far as Point-de-Galle, or even to Colombo.

In the south-west monsoon the current changes its direction; and, although it flows steadily to the northward, its action is very irregular and unequal till it readies the Coromandel coast, after passing Ceylon. This is accounted for by the obstruction opposed by the headlands of Ceylon, which so intercept the stream that the current, which might otherwise set into the Gulf of Manaar, takes a south-easterly direction by Galle and Donedra Head.[1]

[Footnote 1: For an account of the currents of Ceylon, see HORSBURGH's _Directions for Sailing to and from the East Indies, &c._; vol i. p. 516, 536, 580; KEITH JOHNSTON's _Physical Atlas_, plate xiii. p. 50.]

There being no lakes in Ceylon[1], in the still waters of which the rivers might clear themselves of the earthy matter swept along in their rapid course from the hills, they arrive at the beach laden with sand and alluvium, and at their junction with the ocean being met transversely by the gulf-streams, the sand and soil with which they are laden, instead of being carried out to sea, are heaped up in bars along the shores, and these, being augmented by similar deposits held in suspension by the currents, soon extend to north, and south, and force the rivers to flow behind them in search of a new outlet.

[Footnote 1: Pliny alludes to a lake in Ceylon of vast dimensions, but it is clear that his informants must have spoken of one of the huge tanks for the purpose of irrigation. Some of the _Mappe-mondes_ of the Middle Ages place a lake in the middle of the island, with a city inhabited by astrologers; but they have merely reproduced the error of earlier geographers. (SANTAREM, _Cosmog_. tom. iii. p. 336.)]

These formations once commenced, their growth proceeds with rapidity, more especially on the east side of the island; as the southern current in skirting the Coromandel coast brings with it quantities of sand, which it deposits, in tranquil weather, and this being carried by the wind is piled in heaps from Point Pedro to Hambangtotte. Hence at the latter point hills are formed of such height and dimensions, that it is often necessary to remove buildings out of their line of encroachment.[1]

[Footnote 1: This is occasioned by the waste of the banks further north during the violence of the N. E. monsoon; and the sand, being carried south by the current, is intercepted by the headland at Hambangtotte and thrown up these hills as described.]

At the mouths of the rivers the bars thus created generally follow the direction of the current, and the material deposited being dried and partially consolidated in the intervals between the tides, long embankments are gradually raised, behind which the rivers flow for considerable distances before entering the sea. Occasionally these embouchures become closed by the accumulations without, and the pent-up water assumes the appearance of a still canal, more or less broad according to the level of the beach, and extending for miles along the coast, between the mainland and the new formations. But when swollen by the rains, if not assisted by artificial outlets to escape, they burst new openings for themselves, and not unfrequently they leave their ancient channels converted into shallow lagoons without any visible exit. Examples of these formations present themselves on the east side of Ceylon at Nilla-velle, Batticaloa, and a number of other places north and south of Trincomalie.

On the west coast embankments of this kind, although frequent are less conspicuous than on the east, owing chiefly to the comparative weakness of the current. For six months in the year during the north-east monsoon that side of the island is exempt from a current in any direction, and for the remaining six, the current from the south not only rarely affects the Gulf of Manaar, but as it flows out of the Indian Ocean it brings no earthy deposits. In addition to this, the surf during the south-west monsoon rolls with such turbulence on the level beach between Colombo and Point-de-Galle, as in a great degree to disperse the accumulations of sand brought down by the rivers, or heaped up by the tide, when the wind is off the land. Still, many of the rivers are thrown back by embankments, and after forming tortuous lakes flow for a long distance parallel to the shore, before finding an escape for their waters. Examples of this occur at Pantura, to the south of Colombo, and at Negombo, Chilaw, and elsewhere to the north of it.

In process of time these banks of sand[1] become covered with vegetation; herbaceous plants, shrubs, and finally trees peculiar to saline soils make their appearance in succession, and as these decay, their decomposition generates a sufficiency of soil to sustain continued vegetation.

[Footnote 1: In the voyages of _The Two Mahometans_, the unique MS. of which dates about A.D. 851, and is now in the Bibliothèque Royale at Paris, Abon-zeyd, one of its authors, describes the "Gobbs" of Ceylon--a word, he says, by which the natives designate the valleys deep and broad which open to the sea. "En face de cette íle y a de vastes _Gobb_, mot par lequel on désigne une vallée, quand elle est à la fois longue et large, et qu'elle débouche dans la mer. Les navigateurs emploient, pour traverser le _gobb_ appelé 'Gobb de Serendib,' deux mois et même davantage, passant à travers des bois et des jardins, au milieu d'une température moyenne."--REINAUD, _Voyages faits par les Arabes_, vol. i. p. 129.

A misapprehension of this passage has been admitted into the English version of the _Voyages of the two Mahometans_ which is published in PINKERTON'S _Collections of Voyages and Travels_, vol. iii.; the translator having treated gobb as a term applicable to valleys in general. "Ceylon," he says, "contains valleys of great length, which extend to the sea, and here travellers repair for two months or more, in which one is called Gobb Serendib, allured by the beauty of the scenery, chequered with groves and plains, water and meadows, and blessed by a balmy air. The valley opens to the sea, and is transcendently pleasant."--PINKERTON'S _Voyages_, vol. vii. p. 218.

But a passage in Edrisi, while it agrees with the terms of Abou-zeyd, explains at the same time that these gobbs were not valleys converted into gardens, to which the seamen resorted for pleasure to spend two or three months, but the embouchures of rivers flowing between banks, covered with gardens and forests, into which mariners were accustomed to conduct their vessels for more secure navigation, and in which they were subjected to detention for the period stated. The passage is as follows in Jaubert's translation of Edrisi, tom. i. p. 73:--"Cette île (Serendib) depend des terres de l'Inde; ainsi que les vallées (in orig. aghbab) par lesquelles se dechargent les rivières, et qu'on nomme 'Vallées de Serendib.' Les navires y mouillent, et les navigateurs y passent un mois ou deux dans l'abondance et dans les plaisirs."

It is observable that Ptolemy, in enumerating the ports and harbours of Ceylon, maintains a distinction between the ordinary bays, [Greek: kolpos], of which he specifies two corresponding to those of Colombo and Trincomalie, and the shallower indentations, [Greek: limên], of which he enumerates five, the positions of which go far to identify them with the remarkable estuaries or _gobbs_, on the eastern and western coast between Batticaloa and Calpentyn.

To the present day these latter gulfs are navigable for small craft. On the eastern side of the island one of them forms the harbour of Batticaloa, and on the western those of Chilaw and Negombo are bays of this class. Through the latter a continuous navigation has been completed by means of short connecting canals, and a traffic is maintained during the south-west monsoon, from Caltura to the north of Chilaw, a distance of upwards of eighty miles, by means of craft which navigate these shallow channels.

These narrow passages conform in every particular to the description given by Abou-zeyd and Edrisi: they run through a succession of woods and gardens; and as a leading wind is indispensable for their navigation, the period named by the Arabian geographers for their passage is perhaps not excessive during calms or adverse winds.

An article on the meaning of the word gobb will be found in the _Journal Asiatique_ for September, 1844; but it does not exhibit clearly the very peculiar features of these openings. It is contained in an extract from the work on India of ALBYROUNI, a contemporary of Avicenna, who was born in the valley of the Indus.--"Un golfe (gobb) est comme une encoignure et un détour que fait la mer en pénétrant dans le continens: les navires n'y sont pas sans péril particulièrement à l'égard du flux et reflux."--_Extrait de l'ouvrage d'_ ALBYROUNI _sur l'Inde; Fragmens Arabes et Persans, relatifs à l'Inde, recueillés par_ M. REINAUD; _Journ. Asiat., Septembre et Octobre_, 1844, p. 261. In the Turkish nautical work of SIDI ALI CHELEBI, the _Mohit_, written about A.D. 1550, which contains directions for sailors navigating the eastern seas, the author alludes to the _gobbha's_ on the coast of Arracan; and conscious that the term was local not likely to be understood beyond those countries, he adds that "gobbha" means "_a gulf full of shallows, shoals, and breakers_." See translation by VON HAMMER, _Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ v. 466.]

The process of this conversion may be seen in all its stages at various points along the coast of Ceylon.

The margin of land nearest to the water is first taken possession of by a series of littoral plants, which apparently require a large quantity of salt to sustain their vegetation. These at times are intermixed with others, which, though found further inland, yet flourish in perfection on the shore. On the northern and north-western coasts the glass worts[1] and salt worts[2] are the first to appear on the newly raised banks, and being provided with penetrating roots, a breakwater is thus early secured, and the drier sand above becomes occupied with creeping plants which in their turn afford shelter to a third and erect class.

[Footnote 1: Salicornia Indica.]

[Footnote 2: Salsola Indica.]

The Goat's-foot Ipomoea[1], which appears to encircle the world, abounds on these shores, covering the surface to the water's edge with its procumbent branches, which sending down roots from every joint serve to give the bank its first firmness, whilst the profusion of its purple-coloured flowers contrasts strikingly with its dark green foliage.

[Footnote 1: Ipomoea pes-capræ]

Along with the Ipomoea grow two species of beans[1] each endowed with a peculiar facility for reproduction, thus consolidating the sands into which they strike; and the moodu-gaeta-kola[2] (literally the "jointed seashore plant,") with pink flowers and thick succulent leaves.

[Footnote 1: The Mooduawara (_Canavalia obtusifolia_), whose flowers have the fragrance of the sweet pea, and _Dolichos luteus_.]

[Footnote 2: Hydrophylax maritima.]

Another plant which performs an important function in the fertilisation of these arid formations, is the _Spinifex squarrosus_, the "water pink," as it is sometimes called by Europeans. The seeds of this plant are contained in a circular head, composed of a series of spine-like divisions, which radiate from the stalk in all directions, making the diameter of the whole about eight to nine inches. When the seeds are mature, and ready for dispersion, these heads become detached from the plant, and are carried by the wind with great velocity along the sands, over the surface of which they are impelled on their elastic spines. One of these balls may be followed by the eye for miles as it hurries along the level shore, dropping its seeds as it rolls, which speedily germinate and strike root where they fall. The globular heads are so buoyant as to float lightly on the water, and the uppermost spines acting as sails, they are thus carried across narrow estuaries to continue the process of embanking on newly-formed sand bars. Such an organisation irresistibly suggests the wonderful means ordained by Providence to spread this valuable plant along the barren beach to which no seed-devouring bird ever resorts; and even the unobservant natives, struck by its singular utility in resisting the encroachments of the sea, have recorded their admiration by conferring on it the name of _Maha-Rawana roewula_,--"the great beard of Rawana or Rama."

The banks being thus ingeniously protected from the action of the air above, and of the water at their base, other herbaceous plants soon cover them in quick succession, and give the entire surface the first aspect of vegetation. A little retired above high water are to be found a species of _Aristolochia_[1], the Sayan[2], or _Choya_, the roots of which are the Indian Madder (in which, under the Dutch Government, some tribes in the Wanny paid their tribute); the gorgeous _Gloriosa superba_, the beautiful _Vistnu-karandi_[3] with its profusion of blue flowers, which remind one of the English "Forget-me-not," and the thickly-matted verdure of the _Hiramana-doetta_[4], so well adapted for imparting consistency to the soil. In the next stage low shrubs make their appearance, their seeds being drifted by the waves and wind, and taking ready root wherever they happen to rest. The foremost of these are the Scævolas[5] and Screw Pines[6], which grow luxuriantly within the actual wash of the tide, while behind them rises a dense growth of peculiar plants, each distinguished by the Singhalese by the prefix of "Moodu," to indicate its partiality for the sea.[7]

[Footnote 1: _Aristolocia bracteata_. On the sands to the north of Ceylon there is also the _A. Indica_, which forms the food of the great red and white butterfly (_Papilio Hector_).]

[Footnote 2: _Hedyotis umbellata_. A very curious account of the Dutch policy In relation to Choya dye will be found in a paper _On the Vegetable Productions of Ceylon_, by W.C. ONDAATJIE, in the _Ceylon Calendar_ for 1853. See also BERTOLACCI, B. iii. p. 270.]

[Footnote 3: Evolvulus alsinoides.]

[Footnote 4: Lippia nodiflora.]

[Footnote 5: Scævola takkada and S. Koenigii]

[Footnote 6: Pandanus odoratissimus.]

[Footnote 7: _Moodu-kaduru (Ochrosia parviflora); Moodu-cobbe (Ornitrophe serrata); Moodu-murunga (Sophora tomentosa_,) &c. &c. Amongst these marine shrubs the Nil-picha (_Guettarda speciosca_), with its white and delightfully fragrant flowers, is a conspicuous object on some parts of the sea-shore between Colombo and Point-de-Galle.]

Where the sand in the lagoons and estuaries is more or less mingled with the alluvium brought down by the rivers, there are plants of another class which are equally characteristic. Amongst these the Mangroves[1] take the first place in respect to their mass of vegetation; then follow the Belli-patta[2] and Suriya-gaha[3], with their large hibiscus-like flowers; the Tamarisks[4]; the Acanthus[5], with its beautiful blue petals and holly-like leaves; the Water Coco-nut[6]; the Ægiceras and Hernandia[7], with its sonorous fruits; while the dry sands above are taken possession of by the Acacias, _Salvadora Persica_ (the true mustard-tree of Scripture[8], which, here attains a height of forty feet), Ixoras, and the numerous family of Cassias.

[Footnote 1: Two species of _Rhizophora_, two of _Bruguiera_, and one of _Ceriops_.]

[Footnote 2: Paritimn tilliaceum.]

[Footnote 3: Thespesia populnea.]

[Footnote 4: Tamarix Indica.]

[Footnote 5: Dilivaria ilicifolia.]

[Footnote 6: Nipa fruticans.]

[Footnote 7: Hernandia sonora.]

[Footnote 8: The identification of this tree with the mustard-tree alluded to by our Saviour is an interesting fact. The Greek term [Greek: sinapis], which occurs Matt. xiii 31, and elsewhere, is the name given to _mustard_; for which the Arabic equivalent is _chardul_ or _khardal_, and the Syriac _khardalo_. The same name is applied at the present day to a tree which grows freely in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, and generally throughout Palestine; the seeds of which, have an aromatic pungency, which enables them to be used instead of the ordinary mustard (_Sinapis nigra_); besides which, its structure presents all the essentials to sustain the illustration sought to be established in the parable, some of which are wanting or dubious in the common plant, It has a very small seed; it may be sown in a garden: it grows into an "herb," and eventually "becometh a tree; so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof." With every allowance for the extremest development attainable by culture, it must be felt that the dimensions of the domestic _sinapis_ scarcely justify the last illustration; besides which it is an annual, and cannot possibly be classed as a "tree." The khardal grows abundantly in Syria: it was found in Egypt by Sir Gardner Wilkinson; in Arabia by Bové; on the Indus by Sir Alexander Burnes; and throughout the north-west of India it bears the name of kharjal. Combining all these facts, Dr. Royle, in an erudite paper, has shown demonstrative reasons for believing that the _Salvadora Persica_, the "kharjal" of Hindostan, is the "khardal" of Arabia, the "chardul" of the Talmud, and the "mustard-tree" of the parable.]

Lastly, after a sufficiency of earth has been formed by the decay of frequent successions of their less important predecessors, the ground becomes covered by trees of ampler magnitude, most of which are found upon the adjacent shores of the mainland--the Margoza[1], from whose seed the natives express a valuable oil; the Timbiri[2], with the glutinous nuts with which the fishermen "bark" their nets; the Cashu-nut[3]; the Palu[4], one of the most valuable timber trees of the Northern Provinces; and the Wood-apple[5], whose fruit is regarded by the Singhalese as a specific for dysentery.

[Footnote 1: Azadirachta Indica.]

[Footnote 2: Diospyros glutinosa.]

[Footnote 3: Anacardium occidentale.]

[Footnote 4: Mimusopa hexandra.]

[Footnote 5: Ægle marmelos.]

But the most important fact connected with these recently formed portions of land, is their extraordinary suitability for the growth of the coco-nut, which requires the sea-air (and in Ceylon at least appears never to attain its full luxuriance when removed to any considerable distance from it)[1], and which, at the same time, requires a light and sandy soil, and the constant presence of water in large quantities. All these essentials are combined in the sea-belts here described, lying as they do between the ocean on the one side and the fresh-water lakes formed by the great rivers on the other, thus presenting every requisite of soil and surface. It is along a sand formation of this description, about forty miles long and from one to three miles broad, that thriving coco-nut plantations have been recently commenced at Batticaloa. At Calpentyn, on the western coast, a like formation has been taken advantage of for the same purpose. At Jaffna somewhat similar peculiarities of soil and locality have been seized on for this promising cultivation; and, generally, along the whole seaborde of Ceylon to the south and west, the shore for the breadth of one or two miles exhibits almost continuous groves of coco-nut palms.

[Footnote 1: Coco-nuts are cultivated at moderate elevations in the mountain villages of the Interior; but the fruit bears no comparison, in number, size, or weight, with that produced in the lowlands, and near the sea, on either side of the island.]

_Harbours_.--With the exception of the estuaries above alluded to, chiefly in the northern section of the island, the outline of the coast is interrupted by few sinuosities. There are no extensive inlets, or bays, and only two harbours--that of _Point-de-Galle_ which, in addition to being incommodious and small, is obstructed by coral rocks, reefs of which have been upreared to the surface, and render the entrance critical to strange ships[1]; and the magnificent basin of Trincomalie, which, in extent, security, and beauty, is unsurpassed by any haven in the world.

[Footnote 1: Owing to the obstructions at its entrance, Galle is extremely difficult of access in particular winds. In 1857 it was announced in the _Colombo Examiner_ that "the fine ship the 'Black Eagle' was blown out of Galle Roads the other day, with the pilot on board; whilst the captain was temporarily engaged on shore; and as she was not able to beat in again, she made for Trincomalie, where she has been lying for a fortnight. Such an event is by no means unprecedented at Galle."--_Examiner_, 20 Sept. 1857.]

_Tides_.--The variation of the tides is so slight that navigation is almost unaffected by it. The ordinary rise and fall is from 18 to 24 inches, with an increase of about a third at spring tides. High water is later on the eastern than on the western coast; occurring, on full and new moon, a little after eleven o'clock at Adam's Bridge, about 1 o'clock at Colombo, and 1.25 at Galle, whilst it attains its greatest elevation between 5 and 6 o'clock in the harbour of Trincomalie.

_Red infusoria_.--On both sides of the island (but most frequently at Colombo), during the south-west monsoon, a broad expanse of the sea assumes a red tinge, considerably brighter than brick-dust; and this is confined to a space so distinct that a line seems to separate it from the green water which flows on either side. Observing that the whole area changed its position without parting with any portion of its colouring, I had some of the water brought on shore, and, on examination with the microscope, it proved to be filled with _infusoria_, probably similar to those which have been noticed near the shores of South America, and whose abundance has imparted a name to the "Vermilion Sea" off the coast of California.

THE POPULATION OF CEYLON, of all races, was, in 1857, 1,697,975; but this was exclusive of the military and their families, both Europeans and Malays, which together amounted to 5,430; and also of aliens and other casual strangers, forming about 25,000 more.

The particulars are as follow:--

|Provinces |Whites. |Coloured. |Total. |Population| | |Males.|Females.|Males.|Females.|Males.|Females. | to the | |sq. mile. | |Western. |1,293|1,246|293,409|259,106|294,702|260,352 | 146.59 | |N. Western | 21| 11|100,807| 96,386|100,828| 96,397 | 59.93 | |Southern | 238| 241|156,900|149,649|157,138|149,890 | 143.72 | |Eastern | 201| 143| 39,923| 35,531| 40,124| 35,674 | 16.08 | |Northern | 387| 362|153,062|148,678|153,449|149,040 | 55.85 | |Central | 468| 204|143,472|116,237|143,940|116,441 | 52.57 | | |2,608|2,207|887,573|805,587|890,181|807,794 | 69.73 |

CHAP. II.

CLIMATE.--HEALTH AND DISEASE.

The climate of Ceylon, from its physical configuration and insular detachment, contrasts favourably with that of the great Indian peninsula. Owing to the moderate dimensions of the island, the elevation of its mountains, the very short space during which the sun is passing over it[1] in his regression from or approach to the solstices, and its surrounding seas being nearly uniform in temperature, it is exempt from the extremes of heating and cooling to which the neighbouring continent of India is exposed. From the same causes it is subjected more uniformly to the genial influences of the trade winds that blow over the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.

[Footnote 1: In his approach to the northern solstice, the sun, having passed the equator on the 21st of March, reaches the south of Ceylon about the 5th of April, and ten days later is vertical over Point Pedro, the northern extremity of the island. On his return he is again over Point Pedro about the 27th of August, and passes southward over Dondera Head about the 7th of September.]

The island is seldom visited by hurricanes[1], or swept by typhoons, and the breeze, unlike the hot and arid winds of Coromandel and the Dekkan, is always more or less refreshing. The range of the thermometer exhibits no violent changes, and never indicates a temperature insupportably high. The mean on an annual average scarcely exceeds 80° at Colombo, though in exceptional years it has risen to 86°. But at no period of the day are dangerous results to be apprehended from exposure to the sun; and except during parts of the months of March, and April, there is no season when moderate exercise is not practicable and agreeable. For half the year, from October to May, the prevailing winds are from the north-east, and during the remaining months the south-west monsoon blows steadily from the great Indian Ocean. The former, affected by the wintry chills of the vast tracts of land which it traverses before crossing the Bay of Bengal, is subject to many local variations and intervals of calm. But the latter, after the first violence of its outset is abated, becomes nearly uniform throughout the period of its prevalence, and presents the character of an on-shore breeze extending over a prodigious expanse of sea and land, and exerting a powerful influence along the regions of southern Asia.

[Footnote 1: The exception to the exemption of Ceylon from hurricanes is the occasional occurrence of a cyclone extending its circle till the verge has sometimes touched Batticaloa, on the south-eastern extremity of the island, causing damage to vegetation and buildings. Such an event is, however, exceedingly rare. On the 7th of January, 1805, H.M.S. "Sheerness" and two others were driven on shore in a hurricane at Trincomalie.]

In Ceylon the proverbial fickleness of the winds, and the uncertainty which characterises the seasons in northern climates, is comparatively unknown; and the occurrence of changes or rain may be anticipated with considerable accuracy in any month of a coming year. There are, of course, abnormal seasons with higher ranges of temperature, heavier rains, or droughts of longer continuance, but such extremes are exceptional and rare. Great atmospheric changes occur only at two opposite periods of the year, and so gradual is their approach that the climate is monotonous, and one longs to see again "the falling of the leaf" to diversify the sameness of perennial verdure. The line is faint which divides the seasons. No period of the year is divested of its seed-time and its harvest in some part of the island; and fruit hangs ripe on the same branches that are garlanded with opening buds. But as every plant has its own period for the production of its flowers and fruit, each month is characterised by its own peculiar flora.

As regards the foliage of the trees, it might be expected that the variety of tints would be wanting which forms the charm of a European landscape, and that all nature would wear one mantle of unchanging green. But it has been remarked by a tasteful observer[1] that such is far from the fact, and though in Ceylon there is no revolution of seasons, the change of leaf on the same plant exhibits colours as bright as those which tinge the autumnal woods of America. It is not the decaying leaves, but the fresh shoots, which exhibit these brightened colours, the older are still vividly green, whilst the young are bursting forth; and the extremities of the branches present tufts of pale yellow, pink, crimson, and purple, which give them at a distance the appearance of a cluster of flowers.[2]

[Footnote 1: Prof. Harvey, Trin. Coll. Dublin.]

[Footnote 2: Some few trees, such as the margosa (_Azadirachta Indica_), the country almond (_Terminalia catappa_), and others, are deciduous, and part with their leaves. The cinnamon shoots forth in all shades from bright yellow to dark crimson. The maella _(Olax Zeylanica)_ has always a copper colour; and the ironwood trees of the interior have a perfect blaze of young crimson leaves, as brilliant as flowers. The lovi-lovi (_Flacourtia inermis_) has the same peculiarity; while the large bracts of the mussænda (_Mussænda frondosa_) attract the notice of Europeans for their angular whiteness.]

A notice of the variations exhibited by the weather at Colombo may serve as an index to the atmospheric condition of the rest of the island, except in those portions (such as the mountains of the interior, and the low plains of the northern extremity) which exhibit modifications of temperature and moisture incident to local peculiarities.

[Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 85.6º Mean least 69.2º Rain (inches) 3.1]

_January_.--At the opening of the year, the north-east monsoon, which sets in two months previously, is nearly in mid career. This wind, issuing from the chill north and robbed of its aqueous vapour in passing over the elevated mountain regions on the confines of China and Thibet, sweeps across the Bay of Bengal, whence its lowest strata imbibe a quantity of moisture, moderate in amount, yet still leaving the great mass of air far below saturation. Hence it reaches Ceylon comparatively dry, and its general effects are parching and disagreeable. This character is increased as the sun recedes towards its most southern declination, and the wind acquires a more direct draught from the north; passing over the Indian peninsula and almost totally digested of humidity, it blows down the western coast of the island, and is known there by the name of the "along-shore-wind." For a time its influence is uncomfortable and its effects injurious both to health and vegetation: it warps and rends furniture, dries up the surface of the earth, and withers the delicate verdure which had sprung up during the prevalence of the previous rains. These characteristics, however, subside towards the end of the month, when the wind becomes somewhat variable with a westerly tendency and occasional showers; and the heat of the day is then partially compensated by the greater freshness of the nights. The fall of rain within the month scarcely exceeds three inches.

[Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 89° Mean least 71° Rain (inches) 2.1]

_February_ is dry and hot during the day, but the nights are cloudless and cool, and the moonlight singularly agreeable. Rain is rare, and when it occurs it falls in dashes, succeeded by damp and sultry calms. The wind is unsteady and shifts from north-east to north-west, sometimes failing entirely between noon and twilight. The quantity of rain is less than in January, and the difference of temperature between day and night is frequently as great as 15° or 20°.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dr. MACVICAR, in a paper in the _Ceylon Miscellany_, July, 1843, recorded the results of some experiments, made near Colombo, as to the daily variation of temperature and Its effects on cultivation, from which it appeared that a register thermometer, exposed on a tuft of grass in the cinnamon garden in a clear night and under the open sky, on the 2nd of January, 1841, showed in the morning that it had been so low as 52°, and when laid on the ground in the place in the sunshine on the following day, it rose to upwards of 140° Fahr.]

[Sidenote: Wind N.E. to N.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 87.7° Mean least 73.1° Rain (inches) 2.1]

_March_.--In March the heat continues to increase, the earth receiving more warmth than it radiates or parts with by evaporation. The day becomes oppressive, the nights unrefreshing, the grass is withered and brown, the earth hard and cleft, the lakes shrunk to shallows, and the rivers evaporated to dryness. Europeans now escape from the low country, and betake themselves to the shade of the forests adjoining the coffee-plantations in the hills; or to the still higher sanatarium of Neuera-ellia, nearly the loftiest plateau in the mountains of the Kandyan range. The winds, when any are perceptible, are faint and unsteady with a still increasing westerly tendency, partial showers sometimes fall, and thunder begins to mutter towards sunset. At the close of the month, the mean temperature will be found to have advanced about a degree, but the sensible temperature and the force of the sun's rays are felt in a still more perceptible proportion.

[Sidenote: Wind N.W. to S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 88.7° Mean least 73.6° Rain (inches) 7.4]

_April_ is by far the most oppressive portion of the year for those who remain at the sea-level of the island. The temperature continues to rise as the sun in his northern progress passes vertically over the island. A mirage fills the hollows with mimic water; the heat in close apartments becomes extreme, and every living creature flies to the shade from the suffocating glare of mid-day. At length the sea exhibits symptoms of an approaching change, a ground swell sets in from the west, and the breeze towards sunset brings clouds and grateful showers. At the end of the month the mean temperature attains its greatest height during the year, being about 83° in the day, and 10° lower at night.

[Sidenote: Wind N.W. to S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 87.2° Mean least 72.9° Rain (inches) 13.3]

_May_ is signalised by the great event of the change of the monsoon, and all the grand phenomena which accompany its approach.

It is difficult for any one who has not resided in the tropics to comprehend the feeling of enjoyment which accompanies these periodical commotions of the atmosphere; in Europe they would be fraught with annoyance, but in Ceylon they are welcomed with a relish proportionate to the monotony they dispel.

Long before the wished-for period arrives, the verdure produced by the previous rains becomes almost obliterated by the burning droughts of March and April. The deciduous trees shed their foliage, the plants cease to put forth fresh leaves, and all vegetable life languishes under the unwholesome heat. The grass withers on the baked and cloven earth, and red dust settles on the branches and thirsty brushwood. The insects, deprived of their accustomed food, disappear underground or hide beneath the decaying bark; the water-beetles bury themselves in the hardened mud of the pools, and the _helices_ retire into the crevices of the stones or the hollows amongst the roots of the trees, closing the apertures of their shells with the hybernating epiphragm. Butterflies are no longer seen hovering over the flowers, the birds appear fewer and less joyous, and the wild animals and crocodiles, driven by the drought from their accustomed retreats, wander through the jungle, and even venture to approach the village wells in search of water. Man equally languishes under the general exhaustion, ordinary exertion becomes distasteful, and the native Singhalese, although inured to the climate, move with lassitude and reluctance.

Meanwhile the air becomes loaded to saturation with aqueous vapour drawn up by the augmented force of evaporation acting vigorously over land and sea: the sky, instead of its brilliant blue, assumes the sullen tint of lead, and not a breath disturbs the motionless rest of the clouds that hang on the lower range of hills. At length, generally about the middle of the month, but frequently earlier, the sultry suspense is broken by the arrival of the wished-for change. The sun has by this time nearly attained his greatest northern declination, and created a torrid heat throughout the lands of southern Asia and the peninsula of India. The air, lightened by its high temperature and such watery vapour as it may contain, rises into loftier regions and is replaced by indraughts from the neighbouring sea, and thus a tendency is gradually given to the formation of a current bringing up from the south the warm humid air of the equator. The wind, therefore, which reaches Ceylon comes laden with moisture, taken up in its passage across the great Indian Ocean. As the monsoon draws near, the days become more overcast and hot, banks of clouds rise over the ocean to the west, and in the peculiar twilight the eye is attracted by the unusual whiteness of the sea-birds that sweep along the strand to seize the objects flung on shore by the rising surf.

At last the sudden lightnings flash among the hills and sheet through the clouds that overhang the sea[1], and with a crash of thunder the monsoon bursts over the thirsty land, not in showers or partial torrents, but in a wide deluge, that in the course of a few hours overtops the river banks and spreads in inundations over every level plain.

[Footnote 1: The lightnings of Ceylon are so remarkable, that in the middle ages they were as well known to the Arabian seamen, who coasted the island on their way to China, as in later times the storms that infested the Cape of Good Hope were familiar to early navigators of Portugal. In the _Mohit_ of SIDI ALI CHELEBI, translated by Von Hammer, it is stated that to seamen, sailing from Diu to Malacca, "the sign of Ceylon being near is continual lightning, be it accompanied by rain or without rain; so that 'the lightning of Ceylon' is proverbial for a liar!"--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ v. 465.]

All the phenomena of this explosion are stupendous: thunder, as we are accustomed to be awed by it in Europe, affords but the faintest idea of its overpowering grandeur in Ceylon, and its sublimity is infinitely increased as it is faintly heard from the shore, resounding through night and darkness over the gloomy sea. The lightning, when it touches the earth where it is covered with the descending torrent, flashes into it and disappears instantaneously; but, when it strikes a drier surface, in seeking better conductors, it often opens a hollow like that formed by the explosion of a shell, and frequently leaves behind it traces of vitrification.[1] In Ceylon, however, occurrences of this kind are rare, and accidents are seldom recorded from lightning, probably owing to the profusion of trees, and especially of coco-nut palms, which, when drenched with rain, intercept the discharge, and conduct the electric matter to the earth. The rain at these periods excites the astonishment of a European: it descends in almost continuous streams, so close and so dense that the level ground, unable to absorb it sufficiently fast, is covered with one uniform sheet of water, and down the sides of acclivities it rushes in a volume that wears channels in the surface.[2] For hours together, the noise of the torrent, as it beats upon the trees and bursts upon the roofs, flowing thence in rivulets along the ground, occasions an uproar that drowns the ordinary voice, and renders sleep impossible.

[Footnote 1: See DARWIN'S _Naturalist's Voyage_, ch. iii. for an account of those vitrified siliceous tubes which are formed by lightning entering loose sand. During a thunderstorm which passed over Galle, on the 16th May, 1854, the fortifications were shaken by lightning, and an extraordinary cavity was opened behind the retaining wall of the rampart, where a hole, a yard in diameter, was carried into the ground to the depth of twenty feet, and two chambers, each six feet in length, branched out on either side at its extremity.]

[Footnote 2: One morning on awaking at Pusilawa, in the hills between Kandy and Neuera-ellia, I was taken to see the effect of a few hours' rain, during the night, on a macadamised road which I had passed the evening before. There was no symptom of a storm at sunset, and the morning was bright and cloudless; but between midnight and dawn such an inundation had swept the highway that in many places the metal had been washed over the face of the acclivity; and in one spot where a sudden bend forced the torrent to impinge against the bank, it had scooped out an excavation extending to the centre of the high road, thirteen feet in diameter, and deep enough to hold a carriage and horses.]

This violence, however, seldom lasts more than an hour or two, and gradually abates after intermittent paroxysms, and a serenely clear sky supervenes. For some days, heavy showers continue to fall at intervals in the forenoon; and the evenings which follow are embellished by sunsets of the most gorgeous splendour, lighting the fragments of clouds that survive the recent storm.

[Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 85.8° Mean least 74.4° Rain (inches) 6.8]

_June_.--The extreme heat of the previous month becomes modified in June: the winds continue steadily to blow from the south-west, and frequent showers, accompanied by lightning and thunder, serve still further to diffuse coolness throughout the atmosphere and verdure over the earth.

So instantaneous is the response of Nature to the influence of returning moisture, that, in a single day, and almost between sunset and dawn, the green hue of reviving vegetation begins to tint the saturated ground. In ponds, from which but a week before the wind blew clouds of sandy dust, the peasantry are now to be seen catching the re-animated fish; and tank-shells and water-beetles revive and wander over the submerged sedges. The electricity of the air stimulates the vegetation of the trees; and scarce a week will elapse till the plants are covered with the larvæ of butterflies, the forest murmuring with the hum of insects, and the air harmonious with the voice of birds.

The extent to which the temperature is reduced, after the first burst of the monsoon, is not to be appreciated by the indications of the thermometer alone, but is rendered still more sensible by the altered density of the air, the drier state of which is favourable to evaporation, whilst the increase of its movement bringing it more rapidly in contact with the human body, heat is more readily carried off, and the coolness of the surface proportionally increased. It occasionally happens during the month of June that the westerly wind acquires considerable strength, sometimes amounting to a moderate gale. The fishermen, at this period, seldom put to sea: their canoes are drawn far up in lines upon the shore, and vessels riding in the roads of Colombo are often driven from their anchorage and stranded on the beach.

[Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 84.8º Mean least 74.9º Rain (inches) 3.4]

_July_ resembles, to a great extent, the month which precedes it, except that, in all particulars the season is more moderate, showers are less frequent, there is less wind, and less absolute heat.

[Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 84.9° Mean least 74.7° Rain (inches) 2.8]

_August_.--In August the weather is charming, notwithstanding withstanding a slight increase of heat, owing to diminished evaporation; and the sun being now on its return to the equator, its power is felt in greater force on full exposure to its influence.

[Sidenote: Wind S.W. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 84.9º Mean least 74.8º Rain (inches) 5.2]

_September_.--The same atmospheric condition continues throughout September, but towards its close the sea-breeze becomes unsteady and clouds begin to collect, symptomatic of the approaching change to the north-east monsoon. The nights are always clear and delightfully cool. Rain is sometimes abundant.

[Sidenote: Wind S.W. and N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 85.1º Mean least 73.3º Rain (inches) 11.2]

_October_ is more unsettled, the wind veering towards the north, with pretty frequent rain; and as the sun is now far to the southward, the heat continues to decline.

[Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature, 24 hours: Mean greatest 86.3º Mean least 71.5º Rain (inches) 10.7]

_November_ sees the close of the south-west monsoon and the arrival of the north-eastern. In the early part of the month the wind visits nearly every point of the compass, but shows a marked predilection for the north, generally veering from N.E. at night and early morning, to N.W. at noon; calms are frequent and precede gentle showers, and clouds form round the lower range of hills. By degrees as the sun advances in its southern declination, and warms the lower half of the great African continent, the current of heated air ascending from the equatorial belt leaves a comparative vacuum, towards which the less rarefied atmospheric fluid is drawn down from the regions north, of the tropic, bringing with it the cold and dry winds from the Himalayan Alps, and the lofty ranges of Assam. The great change is heralded as before by oppressive calms, lurid skies, vivid lightning, bursts of thunder, and tumultuous rain. But at this change of the monsoon the atmospheric disturbance is less striking than in May; the previous temperature is lower, the moisture of the air is more reduced, and the change is less agreeably perceptible from the southern breeze to the dry and parching wind from the north.

[Sidenote: Wind N.E. Temperature 24 hours: Mean greatest 85° Mean least 70° Rain (inches) 4.3]

_December_.--In December the sun attains to its greatest southern declination, and the wind setting steadily from the northeast brings with it light but frequent rains from Bay Of Bengal. The thermometer shows a maximum temperature of 85° with a minimum of 70°; the morning and the afternoon are again enjoyable in the open air, but at night every lattice that faces the north is cautiously closed against the treacherous "along-shore-wind."

Notwithstanding the violence and volume in which the rains have been here described as descending during the paroxysms of the monsoons, the total rain-fall in Ceylon is considerably less than on the continent of Throughout Hindustan the annual mean is 117.5 and on some parts on the Malabar coast, upwards of 300 inches have fallen in a single year[1]; whereas the in Ceylon rarely exceeds 80, and the highest registered in an exceptional season was 120 inches.

[Footnote 1: At Mahabaleshwar, in the Western Ghauts, the annual mean is 254 inches, and at Uttray Mullay; in Malabar, 263; whilst at Bengal it is 209 inches at Sylhet; and 610.3 at Cherraponga.]

The distribution is of course unequal, both as to time and localities, and in those districts where the fall is most considerable, the number of rainless days is the greatest.[1] An idea may be formed of the deluge that descends in Colombo during the change of the monsoon, from the fact that out of 72.4 inches, the annual average there, no less than 20.7 inches fall in April and May, and 21.9 in October and November, a quantity one-third greater than the total rain in England throughout an entire year.

[Footnote 1: The average number of days on which rain fell at Colombo in the years 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835, was as follows:--

Days. In January 3 February 4 March 6 April 11 May 13 June 13 July 8 August 10 September 14 October 17 November 11 December 8 --- Total 118]

In one important particular the phenomenon, of the Dekkan affords an analogy for that which presents itself in Ceylon. During the south-west monsoon the clouds are driven against the lofty chain of mountains that overhang the western shore of the peninsula, and their condensed vapour descends there in copious showers. The winds, thus early robbed of their moisture, carry but little rain to the plains of the interior, and whilst Malabar is saturated by daily showers, the sky of Coromandel is clear and serene. In the north-east monsoon a condition the very opposite exists; the wind that then prevails is much drier, and the hills which it encounters being of lower altitude, the rains are carried further towards the interior, and whilst the weather is unsettled and stormy on the eastern shore, the western is comparatively exempt, and enjoys a calm and cloudless sky.[1]

[Footnote 1: The mean of rain is, on the western side of the Dekkan, 80 inches, and on the eastern, 52.8.]

In like manner the west coast of Ceylon presents a contrast with the east, both in the volume of rain in each of the respective monsoons, and in the influence which the same monsoon exerts simultaneously on the one side of the island and on the other. The greatest quantity of rain falls on the south-western portion, in the month of May, when the wind from the Indian Ocean is intercepted, and its moisture condensed by the lofty mountain ranges, surrounding Adam's Peak. The region principally affected by it stretches from Point-de-Galle, as far north as Putlam, and eastward till it includes the greater portion of the ancient Kandyan kingdom. But the rains do not reach the opposite side of the island; whilst the west coast is deluged, the east is sometimes exhausted with dryness; and it not unfrequently happens that different aspects of the same mountain present at the same moment the opposite extremes of drought and moisture.[1]

[Footnote 1: ADMIRAL FITZROY has described, in his _Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, the striking degree in which this simultaneous dissimilarity of climate is exhibited on opposite sides of the Galapagos Islands; one aspect exposed to the south being covered with verdure and freshened with moisture, whilst all others are barren and parched.--Vol. ii. p. 502-3. The same state of things exists in the east and west sides of the Peruvian Andes, and in the mountains of Patagonia. And no more remarkable example of it exists than in the island of Socotra, east of the Straits of Bab el Mandeb, the west coast of which, during the north-east monsoon, is destitute of rain and verdure, whilst the eastern side is enriched by streams and covered by luxuriant pasturage.--_Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng._ vol. iv. p. 141.]

On the east coast, on the other hand, the fall, during the north-east monsoon, is very similar in degree to that on the coast of Coromandel, as the mountains are lower and more remote from the sea, the clouds are carried farther inland and it rains simultaneously on both sides of the island, though much less on the west than during the other monsoon.

_The climate of Galle_, as already stated, resembles in its general characteristics that of Colombo, but, being further to the south, and more equally exposed to the influence of both the monsoons, the temperature is not quite so high; and, during the cold season, it falls some degrees lower, especially in the evening and early morning.[1]

[Footnote 1: At Point-de-Galle, in 1854, the number of rainy days was as follows:

Days. January 12 February 7 March 16 April 12 May 23 June 18 July 11 August 21 September 16 October 20 November 15 December 13]

_Kandy_, from its position, shares in the climate of the western coast; but, from the frequency of the mountain showers, and its situation, at an elevation of upwards of sixteen hundred feet above the level of the sea, it enjoys a much cooler temperature. It differs from the low country in one particular, which is very striking--the early period of the day at which the maximum heat is attained. This at Colombo is generally between two and three o'clock in the afternoon, whereas at Kandy the thermometer shows the highest temperature of the day between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning.

In the low country, ingenuity has devised so many expedients for defence from the excessive heat of the forenoon, that the languor it induces is chiefly experienced after sunset, and the coolness of the night is insufficient to compensate for the exhaustion of the day; but, in Kandy, the nights are so cool that it is seldom that warm covering can be altogether dispensed with. In the colder months, the daily range of the thermometer is considerable--approaching 30°; in the others, it differs little from 15°. The average mean, however, of each month throughout the year is nearly identical, deviating only a degree from 76°, the mean annual temperature.[1]

[Footnote 1: The following Table appeared in the _Colombo Observer_, and is valuable from the care taken by Mr. Caley in its preparation;

_Analysis of the Climate at Peradenia, from 1851 to 1858 inclusive._

|Months. | Temperature. | Rainfall. | Remarks. | | | | | |Aver-| |Average| | | |Max. |Min.|Mean.|age | In.|of | | | | | | | of | |Years / | | | | | |Years| \ / | |January |85.0 |52.5|74.06|6 |4.04 |6 |Fine, sunny, heavy dew at | | | | | | | | |night, hot days, and cold | | | | | | | | |nights and mornings. | |February |87.75|55.0|75.76|7 |1.625 |6 |Fine, sunny, dewy nights, | | | | | | | | |foggy mornings, days hot, | | | | | | | | |nights and mornings cold. | |March |89.5 |59.5|77.42|7 |3.669 |6 |Generally a very hot and | | | | | | | | |oppressive month. | |April |89.5 |67.5|77.91|7 |7.759 |6 |Showery, sultry, and | | | | | | | | | oppressive weather. | |May |88.0 |66.0|77.7 |8 |8.022 |6 |Cloudy, windy, rainy; | | monsoon generally changes.| |June |86.0 |71.0|76.69|8 |7.155 |6 |A very wet and stormy month.| |July |86.0 |67.0|75.64|8 |5.72 |6 |Ditto ditto | |August |85.5 |67.0|75.81|8 |8.55 |6 |Showery, but sometimes more | | | | | | | | |moderate, variable | |September |85.5 |67.0|76.13|8 |6.318 |6 |Pretty dry weather, compared| | | | | | | | |with the next two months. | |October |85.73|68.2|75.1 |8 |15.46 |6 |Wind variable, much rain. | |November |84.0 |62.0|74.79|8 |14.732|6 |Wind variable, storms from | | | | | | | | |all points of compass, wet; | | | | | | | | |monsoon generally changes. | |December |82.75|57.0|74.05|7 |7.72 |5 |Sometimes wet, but generally| | | | | | | | |more moderate; towards | | | | | | | | |end of year like January | | | | | | | | |weather. |

Mean yearly Temperature, Mean yearly Nov. 29, 1858 75.92º Rainfall, 91.75 J.A. CALEY. in. nearly.]

In all the mountain valleys, the soil being warmer than the air, vapour abounds in the early morning for the most part of the year. It greatly adds to the chilliness of travelling before dawn; but, generally speaking, it is not wetting, as it is charged with the same electricity as the surface of the earth and the human body. When seen from the heights, it is a singular object, as it lies compact and white as snow in the hollows beneath, but it is soon put in motion by the morning currents, and wafted in the direction of the coast, where it is dissipated by the sunbeams.

_Snow_ is unknown in Ceylon; _Hail_ occasionally falls in the Kandyan hills at the change of the monsoon,[1] but more frequently during that from the north-east. As observed at Kornegalle, the clouds, after collecting as usual for a few evenings, and gradually becoming more dense, advanced in a wedge-like form, with a well-defined outline. The first fall of rain was preceded by a downward blast of cold air, accompanied by hailstones which outstripped the rain in their descent. Rain and hail then poured down together, and, eventually, the latter only spread its deluge far and wide, In 1852, the hail which thus fell at Kornegalle was of such a size that half-a-dozen lumps filled a tumbler, In shape, they were oval and compressed, but the mass appeared to have formed an hexagonal pyramid, the base of which was two inches in diameter, and about half-an-inch thick, gradually thinning towards the edge. They were tolerably solid internally, each containing about the size of a pea of clear ice at the centre, but the sides and angles were spongy and flocculent, as if the particles had been driven together by the force of the wind, and had coalesced at the instant of contact. A phenomenon so striking as the fall of ice, at the moment of the most intense atmospherical heat, naturally attracts the wonder of the natives, who hasten to collect the pieces, and preserve them, when dissolved, in bottles, from a belief in their medicinal properties. Mr. Morris, who has repeatedly observed hailstones in the Seven Korles, is under the impression that their occurrence always happens at the first outburst of the monsoon, and that they fall at the moment, which is marked by the first flash of lightning.

[Footnote 1: It is stated in the _Physical Atlas_ of KEITH JOHNSTON, that hail in India has not been noticed south of Madras. But in Ceylon it has fallen very recently at Korngalle, at Badulla, at Kaduganawa; and I have heard of a hail storm at Jaffna. On 1 the 24th of Sept. 1857, during a thunder-storm, hail fell near Matelle in such quantity that in places it formed drifts upwards of a foot in depth.]

According to Professor Stevelly, of Belfast, the rationale of their appearance on such occasions seems to be that, on the sudden formation and descent of the first drops, the air expanding and rushing into the void spaces, robs the succeeding drops of their caloric so effectually as to send them to the earth frozen into ice-balls.

These descriptions, it will be observed, apply exclusively to the southern regions on the east and west of Ceylon; and, in many particulars, they are inapplicable to the northern portions of the island. At Trincomalie, the climate bears a general resemblance to that of the Indian peninsula south of Madras: showers are frequent, but light, and the rain throughout the year does not exceed forty inches. With moist winds and plentiful dew, this sustains a vigorous vegetation near the coast; but in the interior it would be insufficient for the culture of grain, were not the water husbanded in tanks; and, for this reason, the bulk of the population are settled along the banks of the great rivers.

The temperature of this part of Ceylon follows the course of the sun, and ranges from a minimum of 70° in December and January, to a maximum of 94° in May and June; but the heat is rendered tolerable at all seasons by the steadiness of the land and sea breezes.[1]

[Footnote 1: The following facts regarding the climate of Trincomalie have been, arranged from elaborate returns furnished by Mr. Higgs, the master-attendant of the port, and published under the authority of the meteorological department of the Board of Trade:--

_Trincomalie_.

|Extreme |Mean |Mean |Range |Highest |Days 1854 |Maximum |Minimum |for the |Temperature|of |Temperature |Temperature |Month |Noted |Rain Jan. | 81.3° | 74.7° | 14° | 83 | 10 Feb. | 83.8 | 75.8 | 14 | 86 | 7 Mar. | 85.9 | 76.1 | 16 | 88 | 3 April| 89.6 | 78.9 | 16 | 92 | 3 May | 89.1 | 79.3 | 19 | 93 | 3 June | 90.0 | 79.5 | 19 | 94 | 3 July | 87.7 | 77.7 | 16 | 90 | 5 Aug. | 87.9 | 77.4 | 16 | 91 | 4 Sept.| 89.3 | 77.8 | 18 | 93 | 2 Oct. | 85.2 | 75.8 | 15 | 89 | 14 Nov. | 81.O | 74.9 | 11 | 83 | 15 Dec. | 80.1 | 74.3 | 11 | 82 | 15 Mean temperature for the year 81.4.]

In the extreme north of the island, the peninsula of Jaffna, and the vast plains of Neura-kalawa and the Wanny, form a third climatic division, which, from the geological structure and peculiar configuration of the district, differs essentially from the rest of Ceylon. This region, which is destitute of mountains, is undulating in a very slight degree; the dry and parching north-east wind desiccates the soil in its passage, and the sandy plains are covered with a low and scanty vegetation, chiefly fed by the night dews and whatever moisture is brought by the on-shore wind. The total rain of the year does not exceed thirty inches; and the inhabitants live in frequent apprehension of droughts and famines. These conditions attain their utmost manifestation at the extreme north and in the Jaffna peninsula: there the temperature is the highest[1] in the island, and, owing to the humidity of the situation and the total absence of hills, it is but little affected by the changes of the monsoons; and the thermometer keeps a regulated pace with the progress of the sun to and from the solstices. The soil, except in particular spots, is porous and sandy, formed from the detritus of the coral rocks which it overlays. It is subject to droughts sometimes of a whole year's continuance; and rain, when it falls, is so speedily absorbed, that it renders but slight service to cultivation, which is entirely carried on by means of tanks and artificial irrigation, in the practice of which the Tamil population of this district exhibits singular perseverance and ingenuity.[2] In the dry season, when scarcely any verdure is discernible above ground, the sheep and goats feed on their knees--scraping away the sand, in order to reach the wiry and succulent roots of the grasses. From the constancy of this practice horny callosities are produced, by which these hardy creatures may be distinguished.

[Footnote 1: The mean lowest temperature at Jaffna is 70º, the mean highest 90º; but in 1845-6 the thermometer rose to 90º and 100º.]

[Footnote 2: For an account of the Jaffna wells, and the theory of their supply with fresh water, see ch. i. p. 21.]

Water-spouts are frequent on the coast of Ceylon, owing to the different temperature of the currents of air passing across the heated earth and the cooler sea, but instances are very rare of their bursting over land, or of accidents in consequence.[1]

[Footnote 1: CAMOENS, who had opportunities of observing the phenomena of these seas during his service on board the fleet of Cabral, off the coast of Malabar and Ceylon, has introduced into the _Lusiad_ the episode of a water-spout in the Indian Ocean; but, under the belief that the water which descends had been previously drawn up by suction from the ocean, he exclaims:--

"But say, ye sages, who can weigh the cause, And trace the secret springs of Nature's laws; Say why the wave, of bitter brine erewhile, Should be the bosom of the deep recoil, Robbed of its salt, and from the cloud distil, Sweet as the waters of the limpid rill?"

(Book v.)

But the truth appears to be that the torrent which descends from a water-spout, is but the condensed accumulation of its own vapour, and, though in the hollow of the lower cone which rests upon the surface of the sea, salt water may possibly ascend in the partial vacuum caused by revolution; or spray may be caught up and collected by the wind, still these cannot be raised by it beyond a very limited height, and what Camoens saw descend was, as he truly says, the sweet water distilled from the cloud.]

A curious phenomenon, to which the name of "anthelia" has been given, and which may probably have suggested to the early painters the idea of the glory surrounding the heads of beatified saints, is to be seen in singular beauty, at early morning, in Ceylon. When the light is intense, and the shadows proportionally dark--when the sun is near the horizon, and the shadow of a person walking is thrown on the dewy grass--each particle of dew furnishes a double reflection from its concave and convex surfaces; and to the spectator his own figure, but more particularly the head, appears surrounded by a halo as vivid as if radiated from diamonds.[1] The Buddhists may possibly have taken from this beautiful object their idea of the _agni_ or emblem of the sun, with which the head of Buddha is surmounted. But unable to express a _halo_ in sculpture, they concentrated it into a _flame_.

[Footnote 1: SCORESBY describes the occurrence of a similar phenomenon in the Arctic Seas in July, 1813, the luminous circle being produced on the particles of fog which rested on the calm water. "The lower part of the circle descended beneath my feet to the side of the ship, and although it could not be a hundred feet from the eye, it was perfect, and the colours distinct. The centre of the coloured circle was distinguished by my own shadow, the head of which, enveloped by a halo, was most conspicuously pourtrayed. The halo or glory evidently impressed on the fog, but the figure appeared to be a shadow on the water; the different parts became obscure in proportion to their remoteness from the head, so that the lower extremities were not perceptible."--_Account of the Arctic Regions_, vol. i. ch. v. sec. vi. p. 394. A similar phenomenon occurs in the Khasia Hills, in the north-east of Bengal.--_Asiat. Soc. Journ. Beng._ vol. xiii. p. 616.]

Another luminous phenomenon which sometimes appears in the hill country, consists of beams of light, which intersect the sky, whilst the sun is yet in the ascendant; sometimes horizontally, accompanied by intermitting movements, and sometimes vertically, a broad belt of the blue sky interposing between them.[1]

[Footnote 1: VIGNE mentions an appearance of this kind in the valley of Kashmir: "Whilst the rest of the horizon was glowing golden over the mountain tops, a broad well-defined ray-shaped streak of indigo was shooting upwards in the zenith: it remained nearly stationary about an hour, and was then blended into the sky around it, and disappeared with the day. It was, no doubt, owing to the presence of some particular mountains which intercepted the red rays, and threw a blue shadow, by causing so much of the sky above Kashmir to remain unaffected by them."--_Travels in Kashmir_, vol. ii. ch. x. p. 115.]

In Ceylon this is doubtless owing to the air holding in suspension a large quantity of vapour, which receives shadows and reflects rays of light. The natives, who designate them "Buddha's rays," attach a superstitious dread to their appearance, and believe them to be portentous of misfortune--in every month, with the exception of _May_, which, for some unexplained reason, is exempted.

HEALTH.--In connection with the subject of "Climate," one of the most important inquiries is the probable effect on the health and constitution of a European produced by a prolonged exposure to an unvarying temperature, upwards of 30 degrees higher than the average of Great Britain. But to this the most tranquillising reply is the assurance that _mere heat, even to a degree beyond that of Ceylon, is not unhealthy in itself_. Aden, enclosed in a crater of an extinct volcano, is not considered insalubrious; and the hot season in India, when the thermometer stands at 100° at midnight, is comparatively a healthy period of the year. In fact, in numerous cases heat may be the means of removing the immediate sources of disease. Its first perceptible effect is a slight increase, of the normal bodily temperature beyond 98°, and, simultaneously, an increased activity of all the vital functions. To this everything contributes an exciting sympathy--the glad surprise of the natural scenery, the luxury of verdure, the tempting novelty of fruits and food, and all the unaccustomed attractions of a tropical home. Under these combined influences the nervous sensibility is considerably excited, and the circulation acquires greater velocity, with somewhat diminished force. This is soon followed, however, by the disagreeable evidences of the effort made by the system to accommodate itself to the new atmospheric condition. The skin often becomes fretted by "prickly heat," or tormented by a profusion of boils, but relief being speedily obtained through these resources, the new comer is seldom afterwards annoyed by a recurrence of the process, unless under circumstances of impaired tone, the result of weakened digestion or climatic derangement.

_Malaria_.--Compared with Bengal and the Dekkan, the climate of Ceylon presents a striking superiority in mildness and exemption from all the extremes of atmospheric disturbance; and, except in particular localities, all of which are well known and avoided[1], from being liable after the rains to malaria, or infested at particular seasons with agues and fever, a lengthened residence in the island may be contemplated, without the slightest apprehension of prejudicial results. These pestilential localities are chiefly at the foot of mountains, and, strange to say, in the vicinity of some active rivers, whilst the vast level plains, whose stagnant waters are made available for the cultivation of rice, are seldom or never productive of disease. It is even believed that the deadly air is deprived of its poison in passing over an expanse of still water; and one of the most remarkable circumstances is, that the points fronting the aerial currents are those exposed to danger, whilst projecting cliffs, belts of forest, and even moderately high walls, serve to protect all behind them from attack.[2] In traversing districts suspected of malaria, experience has dictated certain precautions, which, with ordinary prudence and firmness, serve to neutralise the risk--retiring punctually at sunset, generous diet, moderate stimulants, and the daily use of quinine both before and after exposure. These, and the precaution, at whatever sacrifice of comfort, to sleep under mosquito curtains, have been proved in long journeys to be valuable prophylactics against fever and the pestilence of the jungle.

[Footnote 1: Notwithstanding this general condition, fevers of a very serious kind have been occasionally known to attack persons on the coast, who had never exposed themselves to the miasma of the jungle. Such instances have occurred at Galle, and more rarely at Colombo. The characteristics of places in this regard have, in some instances, changed unaccountably; thus at Persadenia, close to Kandy, it was at one time regarded as dangerous to sleep.]

[Footnote 2: Generally speaking, a flat open country is healthy, either when flooded deeply by rains, or when dried to hardness by the sun; but in the process of dessication, its exhalations are perilous. The wooded slopes at the base of mountains are notorious for fevers; such as the _terrai_ of the Nepal hills, the Wynaad jungle, at the foot of the Ghauts, and the eastern side of the mountains of Ceylon.]

_Food_.--Always bearing in mind that of the quantity of food habitually taken in a temperate climate, a certain proportion is consumed to sustain the animal heat, it is obvious that in the glow of the tropics, where the heat is already in excess, this portion of the ingesta not only becomes superfluous so far as this office is concerned, but occasions disturbance of the other functions both of digestion and elimination. Over-indulgence in food, equally with intemperance in wine, is one fruitful source of disease amongst Europeans in Ceylon; and maladies and mortality are often the result of the former, in patients who would repel as an insult the imputation of the latter.

So well have national habits conformed to instinctive promptings in this regard, that the natives of hot countries have unconsciously sought to heighten the enjoyment of food by taking their principal repast _after sunset_[1]; and the European in the East will speedily discover for himself the prudence, not only of reducing the quantity, but in regard to the quality of his meals, of adopting those articles which nature has bountifully supplied as best suited to the climate. With a moderate use of flesh meat, vegetables, and especially farinaceous food, are chiefly to be commended.

[Footnote 1: The prohibition of swine, which has formed an item in the dietetic ritual of the Egyptians, the Hebrews, and Mahometans, has been defended in all ages, from Manetho and Herodotus downwards, on the ground that the flesh of an animal so foully fed has a tendency to promote cutaneous disorders, a belief which, though held as a fallacy in northern climates, may have a truthful basis in the East.--ÆLIAN, _Hist. Anim._ 1. X. 16. In a recent general order Lord Clyde has prohibited its use in the Indian army. Camel's flesh, which is also declared unclean in Leviticus, is said to produce in the Arabs serious derangement of the stomach.]

The latter is rendered attractive by the unrivalled excellence of the Singhalese in the preparation of innumerable curries[1], each tempered by the delicate creamy juice expressed from the flesh of the coco-nut after it has been reduced to a pulp. Nothing of the same class in India can bear a comparison with the piquant delicacy of a curry in Ceylon, composed of fresh condiments and compounded by the skilful hand of a native.

[Footnote 1: The popular error of thinking curry to be an invention of the Portuguese in India is disproved by the mention in the _Rajavali_ of its use in Ceylon in the second century before the Christian era, and in the _Mahawanso_ in the fifth century of it. This subject is mentioned elsewhere: see chapter on the Arts and Sciences of the Singhalese.]

_The use of fruit_--Fruits are abundant and wholesome; but with the exception of oranges, pineapples, the luscious mango and the indescribable "rambutan," for want of horticultural attention they are inferior in flavour, and soon cease to be alluring.

_Wine_.--Wine has of late years become accessible to all, and has thus, in some degree, been substituted for brandy; the abuse of which at former periods is commemorated in the records of those fearful disorders of the liver, derangements of the brain, exhausting fevers, and visceral diseases, which characterise the medical annals of earlier times. With a firm adherence to temperance in the enjoyment of stimulants, and moderation in the pleasures of the table, with attention to exercise and frequent resort to the bath, it may be confidently asserted that health in Ceylon is as capable of preservation and life as susceptible of enjoyment, as in any country within the tropics.

_Exposure_.--Prudence and foresight are, however, as indispensable there as in any other climate to escape well-understood risks. Catarrhs and rheumatism are as likely to follow needless exposure to the withering "along-shore wind" of the winter months in Ceylon[1], as they are traceable to unwisely confronting the east winds of March in Great Britain; and during the alternation, from the sluggish heat which precedes the monsoon, to the moist and chill vapours that follow the descent of the rains, intestinal disorders, fevers, and liver complaints are not more characteristic of an Indian monsoon than an English autumn, and are equally amenable to those precautions by which liability may be diminished in either place.

[Footnote 1: See _ante_, p. 57. It is an agreeable characteristic of the climate of Ceylon, that sun-stroke, which is so common even in the northern portions of India, is almost unknown in the island. Sportsmen are out all day long in the hottest weather, a practice which would be thought more than hazardous in Oude or the north-west provinces. Perhaps an explanation of this may be found in the difference in moisture in the two atmospheres, which may modify the degrees of evaporation; but the inquiry is a curious one. It is becoming better understood in the army that active service, and even a moderate exposure to the solar rays (_always guarding them from the head_,) are conducive rather than injurious to health in the tropics. The pale and sallow complexion of ladies and children born in India, is ascribable in a certain degree to the same process by which vegetables are blanched under shades which exclude the light:--they are reared in apartments too carefully kept dark.]

_Paleness_.--At the same time it must be observed, that the pallid complexion peculiar to old residents, is not alone ascribable to an organic change in the skin from its being the medium of perpetual exudation, but in part to a deficiency of red globules in the blood, and mainly to a reduced vigour in the whole muscular apparatus, including the action of the heart, which imperfectly compensates by increased rapidity for diminution of power. It is remarkable how suddenly this sallowness disappears, and is succeeded by the warm tints of health, after a visit of a very few days to the plains of Neuera-ellia, or the picturesque coffee plantations in the hills that surround it.

_Ladies_.--Ladies, from their more regular and moderate habits, and their avoidance of exposure, might be expected to withstand the climate better than men; and to a certain extent the anticipation appears to be correct, but it by no means justifies the assumption of general immunity. Though less obnoxious to specific disease, debility and delicacy are the frequent results of habitual seclusion and avoidance of the solar light. These, added to more obvious causes of occasional illness, suggest the necessity of vigorous exertion and regular exercise as indispensable protectives.

If suitably clothed, and not injudiciously fed, children may remain in the island till eight or ten years of age, when anxiety is excited by the attenuation of the frame and the apparent absence of strength in proportion to development. These symptoms, the result of relaxed tone and defective nutrition, are to be remedied by change of climate either to the more lofty ranges of the mountains, or, more providently, to Europe.

_Effects on Europeans already Diseased_.--To persons already suffering from disease, the experiment of a residence in Ceylon is one of questionable propriety. Those of a scrofulous diathesis need not consider it hazardous, as experience does not show that in such there is any greater susceptibility to local or constitutional disorders, or that when these are present, there is greater difficulty in their removal.

To those threatened with consumption, the island may be supposed to offer some advantages in the equability of the temperature, and the comparative quiescence of the lungs from reduced necessity for respiratory effort. Besides, the choice of climates presented by Ceylon enables a patient, by the easy change of residence to a different altitude and temperature, avoiding the heats of one period and the dry winds of another, to check to a great extent the predisposing causes likely to lead to the development of tubercle. This, with attention to clothing and systematic exercise as preventives of active disease, may serve to restrain the further progress though it fail to eradicate the tendency to phthibis. But when already the formation of tubercle has taken place to any considerable extent, and is accompanied by softening, the morbid condition is not unlikely to advance with alarming celerity; and the only compensating circumstance is the diminution of apparent suffering, ascribable to general languor, and the absence of the bronchial irritation occasioned by cold humid air.

_Dyspepsia_.--Habitual dyspeptics, and those affected by hepatic obstructions, had better avoid a lengthened sojourn in Ceylon; but the tortures of rheumatism and gout, if they be not reduced, are certainly postponed for longer intervals than those conceded to the same sufferers in England. Gout, owing to the great cutaneous excretion, in most instances totally disappears.

_Precautions for Health_.--Next to attention to diet, health in Ceylon is mainly to be preserved by systematic exercise, and a costume adapted to the climate and its requirements. Paradoxical as it may sound, the great cause of disease in hot climates is _cold_. Nothing ought more cautiously to be watched and avoided than the chills produced by draughts and dry winds; and a change of dress or position should be instantly resorted to when the warning sensation of chilliness is perceived.

_Exercise_.--The early morning ride, after a single cup of coffee and a biscuit on rising, and the luxury of the bath before dressing for breakfast, constitute the enjoyments of the forenoon; and a similar stroll on horseback, returning at sunset to repeat the bath[1] preparatory to the evening toilette, completes the hygienic discipline of the day. At night the introduction of the Indian punka into bed-rooms would be valuable, a thin flannel coverlet being spread over the bed. Nothing serves more effectually to break down an impaired constitution in the tropics than the want of timely and refreshing sleep.

[Footnote 1: "Je me souviens que les deux premières années que je fus en ce pais-là, j'eus deux maladies: _alors je pris la coütume de me bien laver soir et matin_, et pendant 16 ans que j'y ay demeuré depuis, je n'ay pas senti le moindre mal."--RIBEYRO, _Hist. de l'Isle de Ceylan_, vol. v. ch. xix. p. 149.]

_Dress_.--In the selection of dress experience has taught the superiority of calico to linen, the latter, when damp from the exhalation of the skin, causing a chill which is injurious, whilst the former, from some peculiarity in its fibre, however moist it may become, never imparts the same sensation of cold. The clothing best adapted to the climate is that whose texture least excites the already profuse perspiration, and whose fashion presents the least impediment to its escape.[1] The discomfort of woollen has led to its avoidance as far as possible; but those who, in England, may have accustomed themselves to flannel, will find the advantage of persevering to wear it, provided it is so light as not to excite perspiration. So equipped for active exercise, exposure to the sun, however hot, may be regarded without apprehension, provided the limbs are in motion and the body in ordinary health; but the instinct of all oriental races has taught the necessity of protecting the head, and European ingenuity has not failed to devise expedients for this all-important object.

[Footnote 1: "Man not being created an aquatic animal, his skin cannot with impunity be exposed to perpetual moisture, whether directly applied or arising from perspiration retained by dress. The importance to health of keeping the skin _dry_ does not appear to have hitherto received due attention."--PICKERING, _Races of Man_, &c., ch. xliv.]

From what has been said, it will be apparent that, compared with continental India, the securities for health in Ceylon are greatly in favour of the island. As to the formidable diseases which are common to both, their occurrence in either is characterised by the same appalling manifestations: dysentery fastens, with all its fearful concomitants, on the unwary and incautious; and cholera, with its dark horrors, sweeps mysteriously across neglected districts, exacting its hecatombs. But the visitation and ravages of both are somewhat under control, and the experience bequeathed by each gloomy visitation has added to the facilities for checking its recurrence.[1]

[Footnote 1: "It is worthy of remark, that although all the troops in Ceylon have occasionally, but at rare intervals; suffered severely from cholera, the disease has in very few instances attacked the officers; or indeed Europeans in the same grade of life. This is one important difference to be borne in mind when estimating the comparative risk of life in India and Ceylon. It must be due to the difference in comforts and quarters, or more particularly to the exemption from night duty, by far the most trying of the soldiers' hardships. The small mortality amongst the officers of European regiments in Ceylon is very remarkable."--_Note_ by Dr. CAMERON, Army Med. Staff.]

In some of the disorders incidental to the climate, and the treatment of ulcerations caused by the wounds of the mosquitoes and leeches, the native Singhalese have a deservedly high reputation; but their practice, when it depends on specifics, is too empirical to be safely relied on; and their traditional skill, though boasting a well authenticated antiquity, achieves few triumphs in competition with the soberer discipline of European science.

CHAP. III.

VEGETATION.--TREES AND PLANTS.

Although the luxuriant vegetation of Ceylon has at all times been the theme of enthusiastic admiration, its flora does not probably exceed 3000 phænogamic plants[1]; and notwithstanding that it has a number of endemic species, and a few genera, which are not found on the great Indian peninsula, still its botanical features may be described as those characteristic of the southern regions of Hindustan and the Dekkan. The result of some recent experiments has, however, afforded a curious confirmation of the opinion ventured by Dr. Gardner, that, regarding its botany geographically, Ceylon exhibits more of the Malayan flora and that of the Eastern Archipelago, than of any portion of India to the west of it. Two plants peculiar to Malacca, the nutmeg and the mangustin, have been attempted, but unsuccessfully, to be cultivated in Bengal; but in Ceylon the former has been reared near Colombo with such singular success that its produce now begins to figure in the exports of the island;--and mangustins, which, ten years ago, were exhibited as curiosities from a single tree in the old Botanic Garden at Colombo, are found to thrive readily, and they occasionally appear at table, rivalling in their wonderful delicacy of flavour those which have heretofore been regarded as peculiar to the Straits.

[Footnote 1: The prolific vegetation of the island is likely to cause exaggeration in the estimate of its variety. Dr. Gardner, shortly after his appointment as superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Kandy, in writing to Sir W. Hooker, conjectured that the Ceylon flora might extend to 4000 or 5000 species. But from a recent _Report_ of the present curator, Mr. Thwaites, it appears that the indigenous phænogamic plants discovered up to August, 1856, was 2670; of which 2025 were dicotyledonous, and 644 monocotyledonous flowering plants, besides 247 ferns and lycopods. When it is considered that this is nearly double the indigenous flora of England, and little under _one thirtieth_ of the entire number of plants hitherto described over the world, the botanical richness of Ceylon, in proportion to its area, must be regarded as equal to that of any portion of the globe.]

Up to the present time the botany of Ceylon has been imperfectly submitted to scientific scrutiny. Linnæus, in 1747, prepared his _Flora Zeylanica_, from specimens collected by Hermann, which had previously constituted the materials of the _Thesaurus Zeylanicus_ of Burman and now form part of the herbarium in the British Museum. A succession of industrious explorers have been since engaged in following up the investigation[1]; but, with the exception of an imperfect and unsatisfactory catalogue by Moon, no enumeration of Ceylon plants has yet been published. Dr. Gardner had made some progress with a Singhalese Flora, when his death took place in 1849, an event which threw the task on other hands, and has postponed its completion for years.[2]

[Footnote 1: Amongst the collections of Ceylon plants deposited in the Hookerian Herbarium, are those made by General and Mrs. Walker, by Major Champion (who left the island in 1848), and by Mr. Thwaites, who succeeded Dr. Gardner in charge of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kandy. Moon, who had previously held that appointment, left extensive collections in the herbarium at Peradenia which have been lately increased by his successors; and Macrae, who was employed by the Horticultural Society of London, has enriched their museum with Ceylon plants. Some admirable letters of Mrs. Walker are printed in HOOKER'S _Companion to the Botanical Magazine_. They include an excellent account of the vegetation of Ceylon.]

[Footnote 2: Dr. Gardner, in 1848, drew up a short paper containing _Some Remarks on the Flora of Ceylon_, which was printed in the appendix to LEE'S _Translation of Ribeyro_: to this essay, and to his personal communications during frequent journeys, I am indebted for many facts incorporated in the following pages.]

From the identity of position and climate, and the apparent similarity of soil between Ceylon and the southern extremity of the Indian peninsula, a corresponding agreement might be expected between their vegetable productions: and accordingly in its aspects and subdivisions Ceylon participates in those distinctive features which the monsoons have imparted respectively to the opposite shores of Hindustan. The western coast being exposed to the milder influence of the south-west wind, shows luxuriant vegetation, the result of its humid and temperate climate; whilst the eastern, like Coromandel, has a comparatively dry and arid aspect, produced by the hot winds which blow for half the year. The littoral vegetation of the seaborde exhibits little variation from that common throughout the Eastern archipelago; but it wants the _Phoenix paludosa_[1], a dwarf date-palm, which literally covers the islands of the Sunderbunds at the delta of the Ganges. A dense growth of mangroves[2] occupies the shore, beneath whose overarching roots the ripple of the sea washes unseen over the muddy beach.

[Footnote 1: Drs. HOOKER and THOMSON, in their _Introductory Essay to the Flora of India_, speaking of Ceylon, state that the _Nipa fruticans_ (another characteristic palm of the Gangetic delta) and _Cycads_ are also wanting there, but both these exist (the former abundantly), though perhaps not alluded to in any work on Ceylon botany to which those authors had access. In connection with this subject it may be mentioned, as a fact which is much to be regretted, that, although botanists have been appointed to the superintendence of the Botanic Gardens at Kandy, information regarding the vegetation of the island is scarcely obtainable without extreme trouble and reference to papers scattered through innumerable periodicals. That the majority of Ceylon plants are already known to science is owing to the coincidence of their being also natives of India, whence they have been described; but there has been no recent attempt on the part of colonial or European botanists even to throw into a useful form the already published descriptions of the commoner plants of the island. Such a work would be the first step to a Singhalese Flora. The preparation of such a compendium would seem, to belong to the duties of the colonial botanist, and as such it was an object of especial solicitude to the late superintendent, Dr. Gardner. But the heterogeneous duties imposed upon the person holding his office (the evils arising from which are elsewhere alluded to), have hitherto been insuperable obstacles to the attainment of this object, as they have also been to the preparation of a systematic account of the general features of Ceylon vegetation. Such a work is strongly felt to be a desideratum by numbers of intelligent persons in Ceylon, who are not accomplished botanists, but who are anxious to acquire accurate ideas as to the aspects of the flora at different elevations, different seasons, and different quarters of the island; of the kinds of plants that chiefly contribute to the vegetation of the coasts, the plains, and mountains; of the general relations that subsist between them and the flora of the Carnatic, Malabar, and the Malay archipelago; and of the more useful plants in science, arts, medicine, and commerce.

To render such a work (however elementary) at once accurate as well as interesting, would require sound scientific knowledge; and, however skilfully and popularly written, there would still be portions somewhat difficult of comprehension to the ordinary reader; but curiosity would be stimulated by the very occurrence of difficulty, and thus an impulse might be given to the acquisition of rudimentary botany, which would eventually enable the inquirer to contribute his quota to the natural history of Ceylon.

P.S. Since the foregoing was written, Mr. Thwaites has announced the early publication of a new work on Ceylon plants, to be entitled _Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ: with Descriptions of the new and little known genera and species_, and observations on their habits, uses, &c. In the Identification of the species Mr. Thwaites is to be assisted by Dr. Hooker, F.R.S.; and from their conjoint labours we may at last hope for a production worthy of the subject.]

[Footnote 2: Rhizophera Candelaria, Kandelia Rheedei, Bruguiera gymnorhiza.]

Retiring from the strand, there are groups of _Sonneratia[1], Avicennia, Heritiera_, and _Pandanus_; the latter with a stem like a dwarf palm, round which the serrated leaves ascend in spiral convolutions till they terminate in a pendulous crown, from which drop the amber clusters of beautiful but uneatable fruit, with a close resemblance in shape and colour to that of the pineapple, from which, and from the peculiar arrangement of the leaves, the plant has acquired its name of the Screw-pine.

[Footnote 1: At a meeting of the Entomological Society in 1842, Dr. Templeton sent, for the use of the members, many thin slices of substance to replace cork-wood as a lining for insect cases and drawers. Along with the soft wood he sent the following notice:--"In this country (he writes from Colombo, Ceylon, May 19, 1842), along the marshy banks of the large rivers, grows a very large handsome tree, named _Sonneratia acida_, by the younger Linnæus: its roots spread far and wide through the soft moist earth, and at various distances along send up most extraordinary long spindle-shaped excrescences four or five feet above the surface. Of these Sir James Edward Smith remarks 'what these horn-shaped excrescences are which occupy the soil at some distance from the base of the tree from a span to a foot in length and of a corky substance, as described by Rumphins, we can offer no conjecture.' Most curious things (remarks Dr. Templeton) they are; they all spring very narrow from the root, expand as they rise, and then become gradually attenuated, occasionally forking, but never throwing out shoots or leaves, or in any respect resembling the parent root or wood. They are firm and close in their texture, nearly devoid of fibrous structure, and take a moderate polish when cut with a sharp instrument; but for lining insect boxes and making setting-boards they have no equal in the world. The finest pin passes in with delightful ease and smoothness, and is held firmly and tightly so that there is no risk of the insects becoming disengaged. With a fine saw I form them into little boards and then smooth them with a sharp case knife, but the London veneering-mills would turn them out fit for immediate use, without any necessity for more than a touch of fine glass-paper. Some of my pigmy boards are two feet long by three and a half inches wide, which is more than sufficient for our purpose, and to me they have proved a vast acquisition. The natives call them 'Kirilimow,' the latter syllable signifying root"--TEMPLETON, _Trans. Ent. Soc._ vol. iii. p. 302.]

A little further inland, the sandy plains are covered by a thorny jungle, the plants of which are the same as those of the Carnatic, the climate being alike; and wherever man has encroached on the solitude, groves of coco-nut palms mark the vicinity of his habitations.

Remote from the sea, the level country of the north has a flora almost identical with that of Coromandel; but the arid nature of the Ceylon soil, and its drier atmosphere, is attested by the greater proportion of euphorbias and fleshy shrubs, as well as by the wiry and stunted nature of the trees, their smaller leaves and thorny stems and branches.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.]

Conspicuous amongst them are acacias of many kinds; _Cassia fistula_ the wood apple (_Feronia elephantum_), and the mustard tree of Scripture (_Salvadora Persica_), which extends from Ceylon to the Holy Land. The margosa (_Azadirachta Indica_), the satin wood, the Ceylon oak, and the tamarind and ebony, are examples of the larger trees; and in the extreme north and west the Palmyra palm takes the place of the coco-nut, and not only lines the shore, but fills the landscape on every side with its shady and prolific groves.

Proceeding southward on the western coast, the acacias disappear, and the greater profusion of vegetation, the taller growth of the timber, and the darker tinge of the foliage, all attest the influence of the increased moisture both from the rivers and the rains. The brilliant _Ixoras, Erythrinas, Buteas, Jonesias, Hibiscus_, and a variety of flowering shrubs of similar beauty, enliven the forests with their splendour; and the seeds of the cinnamon, carried by the birds from the cultivated gardens near the coasts, have germinated in the sandy soil, and diversify the woods with the fresh verdure of its polished leaves and delicately-tinted shoots. It is to be found universally to a considerable height in the lower range of hills, and thither the Chalias were accustomed to resort to cut and peel it, a task which was imposed on them as a feudal service by the native sovereign, who paid an annual tribute in prepared cinnamon to the Dutch, and to the present time this branch of the trade in the article continues, but divested of its compulsory character.

The Dutch, in like manner, maintained, during the entire period of their rule, an extensive commerce in pepper worts, which still festoon the forest, but the export has almost ceased from Ceylon. Along with these the trunks of the larger trees are profusely covered with other delicate creepers, chiefly Convolvuli and Ipomoeas; and the pitcher-plant (_Nepenthes distillatoria_) lures the passer-by to halt and conjecture the probable uses of the curious mechanism, by means of which it distils a quantity of limpid fluid into the vegetable vases at the extremity of its leaves. The Orchideæ suspend their pendulous flowers from the angles of branches, whilst the bare roots and the lower part of the stem are occasionally covered with fungi of the most gaudy colours, bright red, yellow, and purple.

Of the east side of the island the botany has never yet been examined by any scientific resident, but the productions of the hill country have been largely explored, and present features altogether distinct from those of the plains. For the first two or three thousand feet the dissimilarity is less perceptible to an unscientific eye, but as we ascend, the difference becomes apparent in the larger size of the leaves, and the nearly uniform colour of the foliage, except where the scarlet shoots of the ironwood tree (_Mesua ferrea_) seem, like flowers in their blood-red hue. Here the broad leaves of the wild plantains (_Musa textilis_) penetrate the soil among the broken rocks; and in moist spots the graceful bamboo flourishes in groups, whose feathery foliage waves like the plumes of the ostrich.[1] It is at these elevations that the sameness of the scenery is diversified by the grassy patenas before alluded to[2], which, in their aspect, though not their extent, may be called the Savannahs of Ceylon. Here peaches, cherries, and other European fruit trees, grow freely; but they become evergreens in this summer climate, and, exhausted by perennial excitement, and deprived of their winter repose, they refuse to ripen their fruit.[3] A similar failure was discovered in some European vines, which were cultivated at Jaffna; but Mr. Dyke, the government agent, in whose garden they grew, conceiving that the activity of the plants might be equally checked by exposing them to an extreme of warmth, as by subjecting them to cold, tried, with perfect success, the experiment of laying bare the roots in the strongest heat of the sun. The result verified his conjecture. The circulation of the sap was arrested, the vines obtained the needful repose, and the grapes, which before had fallen almost unformed from the tree, are now brought to thorough maturity, though inferior in flavour to those produced at home.[4]

[Footnote 1: In the Malayan peninsula the bamboo has been converted into an instrument of natural music, by perforating it with holes through which the wind is permitted to sigh; and the effect is described as perfectly charming. Mr. Logan, who in 1847 visited Naning; contiguous to the frontier of the European settlement of Malacca, on approaching the village of Kándáng, was surprised by hearing "the most melodious sounds, some soft and liquid like the notes of a flute, and others deep and full like the tones of an organ. They were sometimes low, interrupted, or even single, and presently they would swell into a grand burst of mingled melody. On drawing near to a clump of trees; above the branches of which waved a slender bamboo about forty feet in length, he found that the musical tones issued from it, and were caused by the breeze passing through perforations in the stem; the instrument thus formed is called by the natives the _bulu perindu_, or plaintive bamboo." Those which Mr. Logan saw had a slit in each joint, so that each stem possessed fourteen or twenty notes.]

[Footnote 2: See _ante_, p. 24.]

[Footnote 3: The apple-tree in the Peradenia Gardens seems not only to have become an evergreen but to have changed its character in another particular; for it is found to send out numerous runners under ground, which continually rise into small stems and form a growth of shrub-like plants around the parent tree.]

[Footnote 4: An equally successful experiment, to give the vine an artificial winter by baring the roots, is recorded by Mr. BALLARD, of Bombay, in the _Transactions of the Agric. and Hortic. Society of India_, under date 24th May,1824. Calcutta. 1850. Vol. i. p. 96.]

The tea plant has been raised with complete success in the hills on the estate of the Messrs. Worms, at Rothschild, in Pusilawa[1]; but the want of any skilful manipulators to collect and prepare the leaves, renders it hopeless to attempt any experiment on a large scale, until assistance can be secured from China, to conduct the preparation.

[Footnote 1: The cultivation of tea was attempted by the Dutch, but without success.]

Still ascending, at an elevation of 6500 feet, as we approach the mountain plateau of Neuera-ellia, the dimensions of the trees again diminish, the stems and branches are covered with orchideæ and mosses, and around them spring up herbaceous plants and balsams, with here and there broad expanses covered with _Acanthaceæ_, whose seeds are the favourite food of the jungle fowl, which are always in perfection during the ripening of the Nilloo.[1] It is in these regions that the tree-ferns (_Alsophila gigantea_) rise from the damp hollows, and carry their gracefully plumed heads sometimes to the height of twenty feet.

[Footnote 1: There are said to be fourteen species of the Nilloo (_Strobilanthes_) in Ceylon. They form a complete under-growth in the forest five or six feet in height, and sometimes extending for miles. When in bloom, their red and blue flowers are a singularly beautiful feature in the landscape, and are eagerly searched by the honey bees. Some species are said to flower only once in five, seven, or nine years; and after ripening their seed they die. This is one reason assigned for the sudden appearance of the rats, which have been elsewhere alluded to (vol. i. p. 149, ii. p. 234) as invading the coffee estates, when deprived of their ordinary food by the decay of the nilloo. It has been observed that the jungle fowl, after feeding on the nilloo, have their eyes so affected by it, as to be partially blinded, and permit themselves to be taken by the hand. Are the seeds of this plant narcotic like some of the _Solanaceaæ_? or do they cause dilatation of the pupil, like those of the _Atropa Belladonna_?]

At length in the loftiest range of the hills the Rhododendrons are discovered; no longer delicate bushes, as in Europe, but timber trees of considerable height, and corresponding dimensions, and every branch covered with a blaze of crimson flowers. In these forests are also to be met with some species of _Michelia_, the Indian representatives of the Magnolias of North America, several arboreous _myrtaceæ_ and _ternstromiaceæ_, the most common of which is the camelia-like _Gordonia Ceylanica_.[1] These and _Vaccinia, Gaultheria, Symploci, Goughia_, and _Gomphandra_, establish the affinity between the vegetation of this region and that of the Malabar ranges, the Khasia and Lower Himalaya.[2]

[Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner.]

[Footnote 2: _Introduction to the Flora Indica_ of Dr. HOOKER and Dr. THOMSON, p. 120. London, 1855.]

Generally speaking, the timber on the high mountains is of little value for oeconomic purposes. Though of considerable dimensions, it is too unsubstantial to be serviceable for building or domestic uses; and perhaps, it may be regarded as an evidence of its perishable nature, that dead timber is rarely to be seen in any quantity encumbering the ground, in the heart of the deepest forests. It seems to go to dust almost immediately after its fall, and although the process of destruction is infinitely accelerated by the ravages of insects, especially the white ants (_termites_) and beetles, which instantly seize on every fallen branch: still, one would expect that the harder woods would, more or less, resist their attacks till natural decomposition should have facilitated their operations and would thus exhibit more leisurely the progress of decay. But here decay is comparatively instantaneous, and it is seldom that fallen timber is to be found, except in the last stage of conversion into dust.

Some of the trees in the higher ranges are remarkable for the prodigious height to which they struggle upwards from the dense jungle towards the air and light; and one of the most curious of nature's devices, is the singular expedient by which some families of these very tall and top-heavy trees throw out buttresses like walls of wood, to support themselves from beneath. Five or six of these buttresses project like rays from all sides of the trunk: they are from six to twelve inches thick, and advance from five to fifteen feet outward; and as they ascend, gradually sink into the hole and disappear at the height of from ten to twenty feet from the ground. By the firm resistance which they offer below, the trees are effectually steadied, and protected from the leverage of the crown, by which they would otherwise be uprooted. Some of these buttresses are so smooth and flat, as almost to resemble sawn planks.

The greatest ornaments of the forest in these higher regions are the large flowering trees; the most striking of which is the Rhododendron, which in Ceylon forms a forest in the mountains, and when covered with flowers, it seems from a distance as though the hills were strewn with vermilion. This is the principal tree on the summit of Adam's Peak, and grows to the foot of the rock on which rests the little temple that covers the sacred footstep on its crest. Dr. Hooker states that the honey of its flowers is believed to be poisonous in some parts of Sikkim; but I never heard it so regarded in Ceylon.

One of the most magnificent of the flowering trees, is the coral tree[1], which is also the most familiar to Europeans, as the natives of the low country and the coast, from the circumstance of its stem being covered with thorns, plant it largely for fences, and grow it in the vicinity of their dwellings. It derives its English name from the resemblance which its scarlet flowers present to red coral, and as these clothe the branches before the leaves appear, their splendour attracts the eye from a distance, especially when lighted by the full blaze of the sun.

[Footnote 1: _Erythrina Indica_. It belongs to the pea tribe, and must not be confounded with the _Jatropha multifida_ which has also acquired the name of the _coral tree_. Its wood is so light and spongy, that it is used in Ceylon to form corks for preserve jars; and both there and at Madras the natives make from it models of their implements of husbandry, and of their sailing boats and canoes.]

The Murutu[1] is another flowering tree which may vie with the Coral, the Rhododendron, or the Asoca, the favourite of Sanskrit poetry. It grows to a considerable height, especially in damp places and the neighbourhood of streams, and pains have been taken, from appreciation of its attractions, to plant it by the road side and in other conspicuous positions. From the points of the branches panicles are produced, two or three feet in length, composed of flowers, each the size of a rose and of all shades, from a delicate pink to the deepest purple. It abounds in the south-west of the island.

[Footnote 1: Lagerstroemia Reginæ.]

The magnificent Asoca[1] is found in the interior, and is cultivated, though not successfully, in the Peradenia Garden, and in that attached to Elie House at Colombo. But in Toompane, and in the valley of Doombera, its loveliness vindicates all the praises bestowed on it by the poets of the East. Its orange and crimson flowers grow in graceful racemes, and the Singhalese, who have given the rhododendron the pre-eminent appellation of the "great red flower," (_maha-rat-mal_,) have called the Asoca the _diya-rat-mal_ to indicate its partiality for "moisture," combined with its prevailing hue.

[Footnote 1: Jonesia Asoca.]

But the tree which will most frequently attract the eye of the traveller, is the kattoo-imbul of the Singhalese[1], one of which produces the silky cotton which, though incapable of being spun, owing to the shortness of its delicate fibre, makes the most luxurious stuffing for sofas and pillows. It is a tall tree covered with formidable thorns; and being deciduous, the fresh leaves, like those of the coral tree, do not make their appearance till after the crimson flowers have covered the branches with their bright tulip-like petals. So profuse are these gorgeous flowers, that when they fall, the ground for many roods on all sides is a carpet of scarlet. They are succeeded by large oblong pods, in which the black polished seeds are deeply embedded in the floss which is so much prized by the natives. The trunk is of an unusually bright green colour, and the branches issue horizontally from the stem, in whorls of threes with a distance of six or seven feet between each whorl.

[Footnote 1: _Bombax Malabaricus_. As the genus Bombax is confined to tropical America, the German botanists, Schott and Endlicher, have assigned to the imbul its ancient Sanskrit name, and described it as _Salmalia Malabarica_.]

Near every Buddhist temple the priests plant the Iron tree (_Messua ferrea_)[1] for the sake of its flowers, with which they decorate the images of Buddha. They resemble white roses, and form a singular contrast with the buds and shoots of the tree, which are of the deepest crimson. Along with its flowers the priests use likewise those of the Champac (_Michelia Champaca_), belonging to the family of magnoliaceæ. They have a pale yellow tint, with the sweet oppressive perfume which is celebrated in the poetry of the Hindus. From the wood of the champac the images of Buddha are carved for the temples.

[Footnote 1: Dr. Gardner supposed the ironwood tree of Ceylon to have been confounded with the _Messua ferrea_ of Linnæus. He asserted it to be a distinct species, and assigned to it the well-known Singhalese name "_nagaha_," or _iron-wood tree_. But this conjecture has since proved erroneous.]

The celebrated Upas tree of Java (_Antiaris toxicaria_) which has been the subject of so many romances, exploded by Dr. Horsfield[1], was supposed by Dr. Gardner to exist in Ceylon, but more recent scrutiny has shown that what he mistook for it, was an allied species, the _A. saccidora_, which grows at Kornegalle, and in other parts of the island; and is scarcely less remarkable, though for very different characteristics. The Ceylon species was first brought to public notice by E. Rawdon Power, Esq., government agent of the Kandyan province, who sent specimens of it, and of the sacks which it furnishes, to the branch of the Asiatic Society at Colombo. It is known to the Singhalese by the name of "ritigaha," and is identical with the _Lepurandra saccidora_, from which the natives of Coorg, like those of Ceylon, manufacture an ingenious substitute for sacks by a process which is described by Mr. Nimmo.[2] "A branch is cut corresponding to the length and breadth of the bag required, it is soaked and then beaten with clubs till the liber separates from the timber. This done, the sack which is thus formed out of the bark is turned inside out, and drawn downwards to permit the wood to be sawn off, leaving a portion to form the bottom which is kept firmly in its place by the natural attachment of the bark."

[Footnote 1: The vegetable poisons, the use of which is ascribed to the Singhalese, are chiefly the seeds of the _Datura_, which act as a powerful narcotic, and those of the _Croton tiglium_, the excessive effect of which ends in death. The root of the _Nerium odorum_ is equally fatal, as is likewise the exquisitely beautiful _Gloriosa superba_, whose brilliant flowers festoon the jungle in the plains of the low country. See Bennett's account of the _Antiaris_, in HORSFIELD'S _Plantæ Javanicæ_.]

[Footnote 2: Catalogue of Bombay Plants, p. 193. The process in Ceylon is thus described in Sir W. HOOKER'S _Report on the Vegetable Products_ exhibited in Paris in 1855: "The trees chosen for the purpose measure above a foot in diameter. The felled trunks are cut into lengths, and the bark is well beaten with a stone or a club till the parenchymatous part comes off, leaving only the inner bark attached to the wood; which is thus easily drawn out by the hand. The bark thus obtained is fibrous and tough, resembling a woven fabric: it is sewn at one end into a sack, which is filled with sand, and dried in the sun."]

As we descend the hills the banyans[1] and a variety of figs make their appearance. They are the Thugs of the vegetable world, for although not necessarily epiphytic, it may be said that in point of fact no single plant comes to perfection, or acquires even partial development, without the destruction of some other on which to fix itself as its supporter. The family generally make their first appearance as slender roots hanging from the crown or trunk of some other tree, generally a palm, among the moist bases of whose leaves the seed carried thither by some bird which had fed upon the fig, begins to germinate. This root branching as it descends, envelopes the trunk of the supporting tree with a network of wood, and at length penetrating the ground, attains the dimensions of a stem. But unlike a _stem_ it throws out no buds, leaves, or flowers; the true stem, with its branches, its foliage, and fruit, springs upwards from the crown of the tree whence the root is seen descending; and from it issue the pendulous rootlets, which, on reaching the earth, fix themselves firmly and form the marvellous growth for which the banyan is so celebrated.[2] In the depth of this grove, the original tree is incarcerated till, literally strangled by the folds and weight of its resistless companion, it dies and leaves the fig in undisturbed possession of its place. It is not unusual in the forest to find a fig-tree which had been thus upborne till it became a standard, now forming a hollow cylinder, the centre of which was once filled by the sustaining tree: but the empty walls form a circular network of interlaced roots and branches; firmly agglutinated under pressure, and admitting the light through interstices that look like loopholes in a turret.

[Footnote 1: Ficus Indica.]

[Footnote 2: I do not remember to have seen the following passage from Pliny referred to as the original of Milton's description of this marvellous tree:--

"Ipsa se serens, vastis diffunditur ramis: quorum imi adeo in terram curvantur, ut annuo spatio infigantur, novamque sibi _propaginem faciant circa parentem in orbem._ Intra septem eam _æstivant pastores_, opacam pariter et munitam vallo arboris, decora specie subter intuenti, proculve, _fornicato_ arbore. Foliorum latitudo _peltæ effigiem Amazonicæ_ habet," &c.--PLINY, 1. xii. c. 11.

"The fig-tree--not that kind for fruit renowned, But such as at this day to Indians known, In Malabar or Dekkan spreads her arms, Branching so broad and long, that on the ground The bended twigs take root, and _daughters grow About the mother tree: a pillar'd_ shade High over arched and echoing walks between. There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat, Shelters in cool and _tends his pasturing flocks_ At loop-holes cut through thickest shade. These leaves They gathered; broad as _Amazonian targe:_ And with what skill they had, together sewed To gird their waist," &c.

_Par. Lost_, ix. 1100.

Pliny's description is borrowed, with some embellishments, from THEOPHRASTUS _de. Nat. Plant._ l. i. 7. iv. 4.]

Another species of the same genus, _F. repens,_ is a fitting representative of the English ivy, and is constantly to be seen clambering over rocks, turning through heaps of stones, or ascending some tall tree to the height of thirty or forty feet, while the thickness of its own stem does not exceed a quarter of an inch.

The facility with which the seeds of the fig-tree take root where there is a sufficiency of moisture to permit of germination, has rendered them formidable assailants of the ancient monuments throughout Ceylon. The vast mounds of brickwork which constitute the remains of the Dagobas at Anarajapoora and Pollanarrua are covered densely with trees, among which the figs are always conspicuous. One, which has fixed itself on the walls of a ruined edifice at the latter city, forms one of the most remarkable objects of the place--its roots streaming downwards over the walls as if their wood had once been fluid, follow every sinuosity of the building and terraces till they reach the earth.

To this genus belongs the Sacred Bo-tree of the Buddhists, _Ficus religiosa,_ which is planted close to every temple, and attracts almost as much veneration as the statue of the god himself. At Anarajapoora is still preserved the identical tree said to have been planted 288 years before the Christian era.[1]

[Footnote 1: For a memoir of this celebrated tree, see the account of Anarajapoora, Vol. II. p. 10.]

Although the India-rubber tree (_F. elastica_) is not indigenous to Ceylon, it is now very widely diffused over the island. It is remarkable for the pink leathery covering which envelopes the leaves before expansion, and for the delicate tracing of the nerves which run in equi-distant rows at right angles from the mid-rib. But its most striking feature is the exposure of its roots, masses of which appear above ground, extending on all sides from the base, and writhing over the surface in undulations--

"Like snakes in wild festoon, In ramous wrestlings interlaced, A forest Laocoon."[1]

[Footnote 1: HOOD's poem of _The Elm Tree._]

So strong, in fact, is the resemblance, that the villagers give it the name of the "Snake-tree." One, which grows close to Cotta, at the Church Missionary establishment within a few miles of Colombo, affords a remarkable illustration of this peculiarity.

There is an avenue of these trees leading to the Gardens of Peradenia, the roots of which meet from either side of the road, and have so covered the surface by their agglutinated reticulations as to form a wooden framework, the interstices of which retain the materials that form the roadway.[1]

[Footnote 1: Mr. Ferguson of the Surveyor-General's Department, assures me that he once measured the root of a small wild fig-tree, growing in a patena at Hewahette, and found it upwards of 140 feet in length, whilst the tree itself was not 30 feet high.]

The Kumbuk of the Singhalese (called by the Tamils Maratha-maram)[1] is one of the noblest and most widely distributed trees in the island; it delights in the banks of rivers and moist borders of tanks and canals; it overshadows the stream of the Mahawelli-ganga, almost from Kandy to the sea; and it stretches its great arms above the still water of the lakes on the eastern side of the island.

[Footnote 1: Pentaptera tomentosa _(Rox.)_.]

One venerable patriarch of this species, which grows at Mutwal, within three miles of Colombo, towers to so great a height above the surrounding forests of coconut palms, that it forms a landmark for the native boatmen, and is discernible from Negombo, more than twenty miles distant. The circumference of its stem, as measured by Mr. W. Ferguson, in 1850, was forty-five feet close to the earth, and seven yards at twelve feet above the ground.

The timber, which is durable, is applied to the carving of idols for the temples, besides being extensively used for less dignified purposes; but it is chiefly prized for the bark, which is sold as a medicine, and, in addition to yielding a black dye, it is so charged with calcareous matter that its ashes, when burnt, afford a substitute for the lime which the natives chew with their betel.

Some of the trees found in the forests of the interior are remarkable for the curious forms in which they produce their seeds. One of these, which sometimes grows to the height of one hundred feet without throwing out a single branch, has been confounded with the durian of the Eastern Archipelago, or supposed to be an allied species[1], but it differs from it in the important particular that its fruit is not edible. The real durian is not indigenous to Ceylon, but was brought there by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century.[2] It has been very recently re-introduced, and is now cultivated successfully. The native name for the Singhalese tree, "Katu-boeda," denotes the prickles that cover its fruit, which is as large as a coco-nut, and set with thorns each nearly an inch in length.

[Footnote 1: It is the _Cullenia excelsa_ of WIGHT's _Icones, &c._ (761-2).]

[Footnote 2: PORCACCHI, in his _Isolario_, written in the sixteenth century, enumerates the true durian as being then amongst the ordinary fruit of Ceylon.--"Vi nasce anchora un frutto detto Duriano, verde et grande come quei cocomeri, che a Venetia son chiamati angurie: in mezo del quale trouano dentro cinque frutti de sapor molto excellente."--Lib. iii. p. 188. Padua, A.D. 1619.]

The _Sterculia foetida,_ one of the finest and noblest of the Ceylon forest-trees, produces from the end of its branches large bunches of dark purple flowers of extreme richness and beauty; but emitting a stench so intolerable as richly to entitle it to its very characteristic botanical name. The fruit is equally remarkable, and consists of several crimson cases of the consistency of leather, within which are enclosed a number of black bean-like seeds: these are dispersed by the bursting of their envelope, which splits open to liberate them when sufficiently ripened.

The Moodilla (_Barringtonia speciosa_) is another tree which attracts the eye of the traveller, not less from the remarkably shaped fruit which it bears than from the contrast between its dark glossy leaves and the delicate flowers which they surround. The latter are white, tipped with crimson, but the petals drop off early, and the stamens, of which there are nearly a hundred to each flower, when they fall to the ground might almost be mistaken for painters' brushes. The tree (as its name implies) loves the shore of the sea, and its large quadrangular fruits, of pyramidal form, being protected by a hard fibrous covering, are tossed by the waves till they root themselves on the beach. It grows freely at the mouths of the principal rivers on the west coast, and several noble specimens of it are found near the fort of Colombo.

The Goda-kaduru, or _Strychnos nux-vomica_ is abundant in these prodigious forests, and has obtained an European celebrity on account of its producing the poisonous seeds from which strychnine is extracted. Its fruit, which it exhibits in great profusion, is of the size and colour of a small orange, within which a pulpy substance envelopes the seeds that form the "nux-vomica" of commerce. It grows in great luxuriance in the vicinity of the ruined tanks throughout the Wanny, and on the west coast as far south as Negombo. It is singular that in this genus there should be found two plants, the seeds of one being not only harmless but wholesome, and that of the other the most formidable of known poisons.[1] Amongst the Malabar immigrants there is a belief that the seeds of the goda-kaduru, if habitually taken, will act as a prophylactic against the venom of the cobra de capello; and I have been assured that the coolies coming from the coast of India accustom themselves to eat a single seed per day in order to acquire the desired protection from the effects of this serpent's bite.[2]

[Footnote 1: The _tettan-cotta,_ the use of which is described in Vol. II. Pt. ix. ch. i. p. 411, when applied by the natives to clarify muddy water, is the seed of another species of strychnos, _S. potatorum_. The Singhalese name is _ingini_ (_tettan-cotta_ is Tamil).]

[Footnote 2: In India, the distillers of arrack from the juice of the coco-nut palm are said, by Roxburgh, to introduce the seeds of the strychnus, in order to increase the intoxicating power of the spirit.]

In these forests the Euphorbia[1], which we are accustomed to see only as a cactus-like green-house plant, attains the size and strength of a small timber-tree; its quadrangular stem becomes circular and woody, and its square fleshy shoots take the form of branches, or rise with a rounded top as high as thirty feet.[2]

[Footnote 1: E. Antiquorun.]

[Footnote 2: Amongst the remarkable plants of Ceylon, there is one concerning which a singular error has been perpetuated in botanical works from the time of Paul Hermann, who first described it in 1687, to the present. I mean the _kiri-anguna_ (Gymnema lactiferum), evidently a form of the G. sylvestre, to which has been given the name of the _Ceylon cow-tree_; and it is asserted that the natives drink its juice as we do milk. LOUDON (_Ency. of Plants_, p. 197) says, "The milk of the _G. lactiferum_ is used instead of the vaccine ichor, and the leaves are employed in sauces in the room of cream." And LINDLEY, in his _Vegetable Kingdom_, in speaking of the Asclepiads, says, "the cow plant of Ceylon, 'kiri-anguna,' yields a milk of which the Singhalese make use for food; and its leaves are also used when boiled." Even in the _English Cyclopædia_ of CHARLES KNIGHT, published so lately as 1854, this error is repeated. (See art. Cow-tree, p. 178.) But this in altogether a mistake;--the Ceylon plant, like many others, has acquired its epithet of _kiri_, not from the juices being susceptible of being used as a substitute for milk, but simply from its resemblance to it in colour and consistency. It is a creeper, found on the southern and western coasts, and used medicinally by the natives, but never as an article of food. The leaves, when chopped and boiled, are administered to nurses by native practitioners, and are supposed to increase the secretion of milk. As to its use, as stated by London, in lieu of the vaccine matter, it is altogether erroneous. MOON, in his _Catalogue of the Plants of Ceylon_, has accidentally mentioned the kiri-anguna twice, being misled by the Pali synonym "kiri-hangula": they are the same plant, though he has inserted them as different, p. 21.]

But that which arrests the attention even of an indifferent passer-by is the endless variety and almost inconceivable size and luxuriance of the _climbing plants and epiphytes_ which live upon the forest trees in every part of the island. It is rare to see a single tree without its families of dependents of this description, and on one occasion I counted on a single prostrate stem no less than sixteen species of Capparis, Beaumontia, Bignonia, Ipomoea, and other genera, which, in its fall, it had brought along with it to the ground. Those which are free from climbing plants have their higher branches and hollows occupied by ferns and orchids, of which latter the variety is endless in Ceylon, though the beauty of their flower is not equal to those of Brazil and other tropical countries. In the many excursions which I made with Dr. Gardner he added numerous species to those already known, including the exquisite _Saccolabium guttatum_, which we came upon in the vicinity of Bintenne, but which had before been discovered in Java and the mountains of northern India. Its large groups of lilac flowers hung in rich festoons from the branches as we rode under them, and caused us many an involuntary halt to admire and secure the plants.

A rich harvest of botanical discovery still remains for the scientific explorer of the districts south and east of Adam's Peak, whence Dr. Gardner's successor, Mr. Thwaites, has already brought some remarkable species. Many of the Ceylon orchids, like those of South America, exhibit a grotesque similitude to various animals; and one, a _Dendrobium_., which the Singhalese cultivate in the palms near their dwelling, bears a name equivalent to the _White-pigeon flower,_ from the resemblance which its clusters present to a group of those birds in miniature clinging to the stem with wings at rest.

But of this order the most exquisite plant I have seen is the _Anæctochilus setaceus_, a terrestrial orchid which is to be found about the moist roots of the forest trees, and has drawn the attention of even the apathetic Singhalese, among whom its singular beauty has won for it the popular name of the Wanna Raja, or "King of the Forest." It is common in humid and shady places a few miles removed from the sea-coast; its flowers have no particular attraction, but its leaves are perhaps the most exquisitely formed in the vegetable kingdom; their colour resembles dark velvet, approaching to black, and reticulated over all the surface with veins of ruddy gold.[1]

[Footnote 1: There is another small orchid bearing a slight resemblance to the wanna raja, which is often found growing along with it, called by the Singhalese iri raja, or "striped king." Its leaves are somewhat bronzed, but they are longer and narrower than those of the wanna raja; and, as its Singhalese name implies, it has two white stripes running through the length of each. They are not of the same genus; the wanna raja being the only species of _Anæctochilus_ yet found in Ceylon.]

The branches of all the lower trees and brushwood are so densely covered with convolvuli, and similar delicate climbers of every colour, that frequently it is difficult to discover the tree which supports them, owing to the heaps of verdure under which it is concealed. One very curious creeper, which always catches the eye, is the square-stemmed vine[1], whose fleshy four-sided runners climb the highest trees, and hang down in the most fantastic bunches. Its stem, like that of another plant of the same genus (the _Vitis Indica_), when freshly cut, yields a copious draught of pure tasteless fluid, and is eagerly sought after by elephants.

[Footnote 1: Cissus edulis, _Dalz_.]

But it is the trees of older and loftier growth that exhibit the rank luxuriance of these wonderful epiphytes in the most striking manner. They are tormented by climbing plants of such extraordinary dimensions that many of them exceed in diameter the girth of a man; and these gigantic appendages are to be seen surmounting the tallest trees of the forest, grasping their stems in firm convolutions, and then flinging their monstrous tendrils over the larger limbs till they reach the top, whence they descend to the ground in huge festoons, and, after including another and another tree in their successive toils, they once more ascend to the summit, and wind the whole into a maze of living network as massy as if formed by the cable of a line-of-battle ship. When, by-and-by, the trees on which this singular fabric has become suspended give way under its weight, or sink by their own decay, the fallen trunk speedily disappears, whilst the convolutions of climbers continue to grow on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous and peculiar living mounds of confusion that it is possible to fancy. Frequently one of these creepers may be seen holding by one extremity the summit of a tall tree, and grasping with the other an object at some distance near the earth, between which it is strained as tight and straight as if hauled over a block. In all probability the young tendril had been originally fixed in this position by the wind, and retained in it till it had gained its maturity, where it has the appearance of having been artificially arranged as if to support a falling tree.

This peculiarity of tropical vegetation has been turned to profitable account by the Ceylon woodmen, employed by the European planters in felling forest trees, preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. In this craft they are singularly expert, and far surpass the Malabar coolies, who assist in the same operations. In steep and mountainous places where the trees have been thus lashed together by the interlacing climbers, the practice is to cut halfway through each stem in succession, till an area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final overthrow. Then severing some tall group on the eminence, and allowing it in its descent to precipitate itself on those below, the whole expanse is in one moment brought headlong to the ground; the falling timber forcing down those beneath it by its weight, and dragging those behind to which it is harnessed by its living attachments. The crash occasioned by this startling operation is so deafeningly loud, that it is audible for two or three miles in the clear and still atmosphere of the hills.

One monstrous creeping plant called by the Kandyans the Maha-pus-wael, or "Great hollow climber,"[1] has pods, some of which I have seen fully five feet long and six inches broad, with beautiful brown beans, so large that the natives hollow them out, and carry them as tinder-boxes.

[Footnote 1: _Entada pursætha_. The same plant, when found in lower situations, where it wants the soil and moisture of the mountains, is so altered in appearance that the natives call it the "heen-pus-wael;" and even botanists have taken it for a distinct species. The beautiful mountain region of Pusilawa, now familiar as one of the finest coffee districts in Ceylon, in all probability takes its name from the giant bean, "Pus-waelawa."]

Another climber of less dimensions[1], but greater luxuriance, haunts the jungle, and often reaches the tops of the highest trees, whence it suspends large bunches of its yellow flowers, and eventually produces clusters of prickly pods containing greyish-coloured seeds, less than an inch in diameter, which are so strongly coated with silex, that they are said to strike fire like a flint.

[Footnote 1: Guilandina Bonduc.]

One other curious climber is remarkable for the vigour and vitality of its vegetation, a faculty in which it equals, if it do not surpass, the banyan. This is the _Cocculus cordifolius_, the "rasa-kindu" of the Singhalese, a medicinal plant which produces the _guluncha_ of Bengal. It is largely cultivated in Ceylon, and when it has acquired the diameter of half an inch, it is not unusual for the natives to cut from the main stem a portion of from twenty to thirty feet in length, leaving the dissevered plant suspended from the branches of the tree which sustained it. The amputation naturally serves for a time to check its growth, but presently small rootlets, not thicker than a pack-thread, are seen shooting downwards from the wounded end; these swing in the wind till, reaching the ground, they attach themselves in the soil, and form new stems, which in turn, when sufficiently grown, are cut away and replaced by a subsequent growth. Such is its tenacity of life, that when the Singhalese wish to grow the _rasa-kindu_, they twist several yards of the stem into a coil of six or eight inches in diameter, and simply hang it on the branch of a tree, where it speedily puts forth its large heart-shaped leaves, and sends down its rootlets to the earth.

The ground too has its creepers, and some of them very curious. The most remarkable are the ratans, belonging to the Calamus genus of palms. Of these I have seen a specimen 250 feet long and an inch in diameter, without a single irregularity, and no appearance of foliage other than the bunch of feathery leaves at the extremity.

The strength of these slender plants is so extreme, that the natives employ them with striking success in the formation of bridges across the water-courses and ravines. One which crossed the falls of the Mahawelliganga, in the Kotmahe range of hills, was constructed with the scientific precision of an engineer's work. It was entirely composed of the plant, called by the natives the "Waywel," its extremities fastened to living trees, on the opposite sides of the ravine through which a furious and otherwise impassable mountain torrent thundered and fell from rock to rock with a descent of nearly 100 feet. The flooring of this aerial bridge consisted of short splints of wood, laid transversely, and bound in their places by thin strips of the waywel itself. The whole structure vibrated and swayed with fearful ease, but the coolies traversed it though heavily laden; and the European, between whose estate and the high road it lay, rode over it daily without dismounting.

Another class of trees which excites the astonishment of an European, are those whose stems are protected, as high as cattle can reach, by thorns, which in the jungle attain a growth and size quite surprising. One species of palm[1], the _Caryota horrida,_ often rises to a height of fifty feet, and has a coating of thorns for about six or eight feet from the ground, each about an inch in length, and so densely covering the stem that the bark is barely visible.

[Footnote 1: This palm I have called a _Caryota_ on the authority of Dr. GARDNER, and of MOON'S _Catalogue_; but I have been informed by Dr. HOOKER and Mr. THWAITES that it is an _Areca_. The natives identify it with the Caryota, and call it the "katu-kittul."]

A climbing plant, the "Kudu-miris" of the Singhalese[1], very common in the hill jungles, with a diameter of three or four inches, is thickly studded with knobs about half an inch high, and from the extremity of each a thorn protrudes, as large and sharp as the bill of a sparrow-hawk. It has been the custom of the Singhalese from time immemorial, to employ the thorny trees of their forests in the construction of defences against their enemies. The _Mahawanso_ relates, that in the civil wars, in the reign of Prakrama-bahu in the twelfth century, the inhabitants of the southern portion of the island intrenched themselves against his forces behind moats filled with thorns.[2] And at an earlier period, during the contest of Dutugaimunu with Elala, the same authority states, that a town which he was about to attack was "surrounded on all sides by the thorny _Dadambo creeper_ (probably Toddalia aculeata), within which was a triple hue of fortifications, with one gate of difficult access."[3]

[Footnote 1: Toddalia aculeata.]

[Footnote 2: _Mahawanso_ ch. lxxiv.]

[Footnote 3: _Mahawanso_ ch. xxv.]

During the existence of the Kandyan kingdom as an independent state, before its conquest by the British, the frontier forests were so thickened and defended by dense plantations of these thorny palms and climbers at different points, as to exhibit a natural fortification impregnable to the feeble tribes on the other side, and at each pass which led to the level country, movable gates, formed of the same formidable thorny beams, were suspended as an ample security against the incursions of the naked and timid lowlanders.[1]

[Footnote 1: The kings of Kandy maintained a regulation "that no one; on pain of death, should presume to cut a road through the forest wider than was sufficient for one person to pass."--WOLF'S _Life and Adventures_, p. 308.]

The pasture grounds throughout the vicinity of Jaffna abound in a low shrub called the Buffalo-thorn[1], the black twigs of which are beset at every joint by a pair of thorns, set opposite each other like the horns of an ox, as sharp as a needle, from two to three inches in length, and thicker at the base than the stem they grow on.

[Footnote 1: _Acacia latronum._]

The _Acacia tomentosa_ is of the same genus, with thorns so large as to be called the "_jungle-nail_" by Europeans. It is frequent in the woods of Jaffna and Manaar, where it bears the Tamil name of _Aani mulla_, or "elephant thorn." In some of these thorny plants, as in the _Phoberos Goertneri, Thun._,[1] the spines grow not singly, but in branching clusters, each point presenting a spike as sharp as a lancet; and where these formidable shrubs abound they render the forest absolutely impassable, even to the elephant and to animals of great size and force.

[Footnote 1: Mr. Wm. Ferguson writes to me, "This is the famous _Katu-kurundu_, or 'thoray cinnamon,' of the Singhalese, figured and described by Gaertner as the _Limonia pusilla_, which after a great deal of labour and research I think I have identified as the _Phoberos macrophyllus_" (W. and A. Prod. p. 30). Thunberg alludes to it (_Travels_, vol. iv.)--"Why the Singhalese have called it a cinnamon, I do not know, unless from some fancied similarity in its seeds to those of the cinnamon laurel."]

The family of trees which, from their singularity as well as their beauty, most attract the eye of the traveller in the forests of Ceylon, are the palms, which occur in rich profusion, although, of upwards of six hundred species which are found in other countries, not more than ten or twelve are indigenous to the island.[1] At the head of these is the coco-nut, every particle of whose substance, stem, leaves, and fruit, the Singhalese turn to so many accounts, that one of their favourite topics to a stranger is to enumerate the _hundred_ uses to which they tell us this invaluable tree is applied.[2]

[Footnote 1: Mr. Thwaites has enumerated fifteen species (including the coco-nut, and excluding the _Nipa fruticans_, which more properly belongs to the family of screw-pines): viz. Areca, 4; Caryota, 1; Calamus, 5; Borassus, 1; Corypha, 1; Phoenix, 2; Cocos, 1.]

[Footnote 2: The following are only a few of the countless uses of this invaluable tree. The _leaves_, for roofing, for mats, for baskets, torches or chules, fuel, brooms, fodder for cattle, manure. The _stem of the leaf_, for fences, for pingoes (or yokes) for carrying burthens on the shoulders, for fishing-rods, and innumerable domestic utensils. The _cabbage_ or cluster of unexpended leaves, for pickles and preserves. The _sap_ for _toddy_, for distilling arrack, and for making vinegar, and sugar. The _unformed nut_, for medicine and sweetmeats. The _young nut_ and its milk, for drinking, for dessert; the _green husk_ for preserves. The _nut_, for eating, for curry, for milk, for cooking. The _oil_, for rheumatism, for anointing the hair, for soap, for candles, for light; and the _poonak_, or refuse of the nut after expressing the oil, for cattle and poultry. The _shell of the nut_, for drinking cups, charcoal, tooth-powder, spoons, medicine, hookahs, beads, bottles, and knife-handles. The _coir_, or fibre which envelopes the shell within the outer husk, for mattresses, cushions, ropes, cables, cordage, canvass, fishing-nets, fuel, brushes, oakum, and floor mats. The _trunk_, for rafters, laths, railing, boats, troughs, furniture, firewood; and when very young, the first shoots, or cabbage, as a vegetable for the table. The entire list, with a Singhalese enthusiast, is an interminable narration of the virtues of his favourite tree.]

The most majestic and wonderful of the palm tribe is the _talpat_ or _talipat_[1], the stem of which sometimes attains the height of 100 feet, and each of its enormous fan-like leaves, when laid upon the ground, will form a semicircle of 16 feet in diameter, and cover an area of nearly 200 superficial feet. The tree flowers but once, and dies; and the natives firmly believe that the bursting of the shadix is accompanied by a loud explosion. The leaves alone are converted by the Singhalese to purposes of utility. Of them they form coverings for their houses, and portable tents of a rude but effective character; and on occasions of ceremony, each chief and headman on walking abroad is attended by a follower, who holds above his head an elaborately-ornamented fan, formed from a single leaf of the talpat.

[Footnote 1: Corypha umbraculifera, _Linn._]

But the most interesting use to which they are applied is as substitutes for paper, both for books and for ordinary purposes. In the preparation of _olas_, which is the term applied to them when so employed, the leaves are taken whilst still tender, and, after separating the central ribs, they are cut into strips and boiled in spring water. They are dried first in the shade, and afterwards in the sun, then made into rolls, and kept in store, or sent to the market for sale. Before they are fit for writing on they are subjected to a second process, called _madema_. A smooth plank of areca-palm is tied horizontally between two trees, each ola is then damped, and a weight being attached to one end of it, it is drawn backwards and forwards across the edge of the wood till the surface becomes perfectly smooth and polished; and during the process, as the moisture dries up, it is necessary to renew it till the effect is complete. The smoothing of a single ola will occupy from fifteen to twenty minutes.[1]

[Footnote 1: See Vol. II. p. 528.]

The finest specimens in Ceylon are to be obtained at the Panselas, or Buddhist monasteries; they are known as _pusk[(o]la_ and are prepared by the Samanera priests (novices) and the students, under the superintendence of the priests.

The raw leaves, when dried without any preparation, are called _karak[(o]la_, and, like the leaves of the palmyra, are used only for ordinary purposes by the Singhalese; but in the Tamil districts, where palmyras are abundant, and talpat palms rare, the leaves of the former are used for books as well as for letters.

The _palmyra_[1] is another invaluable palm, and one of the most beautiful of the family. It grows in such profusion over the north of Ceylon, and especially in the peninsula of Jaffna, as to form extensive forests, whence its timber is exported for rafters to all parts of the island, as well as to the opposite coast of India, where, though the palmyra grows luxuriantly, its wood, from local causes, is too soft and perishable to be used for any purpose requiring strength and durability, qualities which, in the palmyra of Ceylon, are pre-eminent. To the inhabitants of the northern provinces this invaluable tree is of the same importance as the coco-nut palm is to the natives of the south. Its fruit yields them food and oil; its juice "palm wine" and sugar; its stem is the chief material of their buildings; and its leaves, besides serving as roofs to their dwellings and fences to their farms, supply them with matting and baskets, with head-dresses and fans, and serve as a substitute for paper for their deeds and writings, and for the sacred books, which contain the traditions of their faith. It has been said with truth that a native of Jaffna, if he be contented with ordinary doors and mud walls, may build an entire house (as he wants neither nails nor iron work), with walls, roof, and covering from the Palmyra palm. From this same tree he may draw his wine, make his oil, kindle his fire, carry his water, store his food, cook his repast, and sweeten it, if he pleases; in fact, live from day to day dependent on his palmyra alone. Multitudes so live, and it may be safely asserted that this tree alone furnishes one-fourth the means of sustenance for the population of the northern provinces.

[Footnote 1: _Borassus flabelliformis_. For an account of the Palmyra, and its cultivation in the peninsula of Jaffna, see FERGUSON'S monograph on the _Palmyra Palm of Ceylon_, Colombo, 1850.]

The _Jaggery Palm_[1], the _Kitool_ of the Singhalese, is chiefly cultivated in the Kandyan hills for the sake of its sap, which is drawn, boiled down, and crystallised into a coarse brown sugar, in universal use amongst the inhabitants of the south and west of Ceylon, who also extract from its pith a farina scarcely inferior to sago. The black fibre of the leaf is twisted by the Rodiyas into ropes of considerable smoothness and tenacity. A single Kitool tree has been pointed out at Ambogammoa, which furnished the support of a Kandyan, his wife, and their children. A tree has been known to yield one hundred pints of toddy within twenty-four hours.

[Footnote 1: Caryota urens.]

The _Areca_[1] _Palm_ is the invariable feature of a native garden, being planted near the wells and water-courses, as it rejoices in moisture. Of all the tribe it is the most graceful and delicate, rising to the height of forty or fifty feet[2], without an inequality on its thin polished stem, which is dark green towards the top, and sustains a crown of feathery foliage, in the midst of which are clustered the astringent nuts for whose sake it is carefully tended.

[Footnote 1: A. catechu.]

[Footnote 2: Mr. Ferguson measured an areca at Caltura which was seventy-five feet high, and grew near a coco-nut which was upwards of ninety feet. Caltura is, however, remarkable for the growth and luxuriance of its vegetation.]

The chewing of these nuts with lime and the leaf of the betel-pepper supplies to the people of Ceylon the same enjoyment which tobacco affords to the inhabitants of other countries; but its use is, if possible, more offensive, as the three articles, when combined, colour the saliva of so deep a red that the lips and teeth appear as if covered with blood. Yet, in spite of this disgusting accompaniment, men and women, old and young, from morning till night indulge in the repulsive luxury.[1]

[Footnote 1: Dr. Elliot, of Colombo, has observed several cases of cancer in the cheek which, from its peculiar characteristics, he has designated the "betel-chewer's cancer."]

It is seldom, however, that we find in semi-civilised life habits universally prevailing which have not their origin, however ultimately they may be abused by excess, in some sense of utility. The Turk, when he adds to the oppressive warmth of the sun by enveloping his forehead in a cumbrous turban, or the Arab, when he increases the sultry heat by swathing his waist in a showy girdle, may appear to act on no other calculation than a willingness to sacrifice comfort to a love of display; but the custom in each instance is the result of precaution--in the former, because the head requires especial protection from sun-strokes; and in the latter, from the fact well known to the Greeks ([Greek: eozônoi Achaioi]) that, in a warm climate, danger is to be apprehended from a sudden chill to that particular region of the stomach. In like manner, in the chewing of the areca-nut with its accompaniments of lime and betel, the native of Ceylon is unconsciously applying a specific corrective to the defective qualities of his daily food. Never eating flesh meat by any chance, seldom or never using milk, butter, poultry, or eggs, and tasting fish but occasionally (more rarely in the interior of the island,) the non-azotised elements abound in every article he consumes with the exception of the bread-fruit, the jak, and some varieties of beans. In their indolent and feeble stomachs these are liable to degenerate into flatulent and acrid products; but, apparently by instinct, the whole population have adopted a simple prophylactic. Every Singhalese carries in his waistcloth an ornamented box of silver or brass, according to his means, enclosing a smaller one to hold a portion of chunam (lime obtained by the calcination of shells) whilst the larger contains the nuts of the areca and a few fresh leaves of the betel-pepper. As inclination or habit impels, he scrapes down the nut, which abounds in catechu, and, rolling it up with a little of the lime in a betel-leaf, the whole is chewed, and finally swallowed, after provoking an extreme salivation. No medical prescription could be more judiciously compounded to effect the desired object than this practical combination of antacid, the tonic, and carminative.

The custom is so ancient in Ceylon and in India that the Arabs and Persians who resorted to Hindustan in the eighth and ninth centuries carried back the habit to their own country; and Massoudi, the traveller of Bagdad, who wrote the account of his voyages in A.D. 943, states that the chewing of betel prevailed along the southern coast of Arabia, and reached as far as Yemen and Mecca.[1] Ibn Batuta saw the betel plant at Zahfar A.D. 1332, and describes it accurately as trained like a vine over a trellis of reeds, or climbing the steins of the coco-nut palm.[2]

[Footnote 1: Massoudi, _Maraudj-al-Dzeheb_, as translated by REINAUD, _Mémoire_ _sur l'Lede_. p. 230.]

[Footnote 2: _Voyages_, &c. t. ii. p. 205.]

The leaves of the coca[1] supply the Indians of Bolivia and Peru with a stimulant, whose use is equivalent to that of the betel-pepper among the natives of Hindustan and the Eastern Archipelago. With an admixture of lime, they are chewed perseveringly; but, unlike the betel, the colour imparted by them to the saliva is greenish, instead of red. It is curious, too, as a coincidence common to the humblest phases of semi-civilised life, that, in the absence of coined money, the leaves of the coca form a rude kind of currency in the Andes, as does the betel in some parts of Ceylon, and tobacco amongst the tribes of the south-west of Africa.[2]

[Footnote 1: Erythroxylon coca.]

[Footnote 2: Tobacco was a currency in North America when Virginia was colonised in the early part of the 17th century; debts were contracted and paid in it, and in every ordinary transaction tobacco answered the purposes of coin.]

Neither catechu nor its impure equivalent, "terra japonica," is prepared from the areca in Ceylon; but the nuts are exported in large quantities to the Maldive Islands and to India, the produce of which they excel both in astringency and size. The fibrous wood of the areca being at once straight, firm, and elastic, is employed for making the pingoes (yokes for the shoulders), by means of which the Singhalese coolie, like the corresponding class among the ancient Egyptians and the Greeks, carries his burdens, dividing them into portions of equal weight, one of which is suspended from each end of the pingo. By a swaying motion communicated to them as he starts, his own movement is facilitated, whereas one unaccustomed to the work, by allowing the oscillation to become irregular, finds it almost impossible to proceed with a load of any considerable weight.[1]

[Footnote 1: The natives of Tahti use a yoke of the same form as the Singhalese _pingo_, but made from the wood of the _Hibiscus tiliaceus._--DARWIN, _Nat. Voy._ ch. xviii. p. 407. For a further account of the pingo see Vol. I. Part iv. ch. viii. p. 497.]

_Timber trees_, either for export or domestic use, are not found in any abundance except in the low country, and here the facility of floating them to the sea, down the streams which intersect the eastern coast of the island, has given rise to an active trade at Batticaloa and Trincomalie. But, unfortunately, the indifference of the local officers entrusted with the issue of licences to fell, and the imperfect control exercised over the adventurers who embark in these speculations, has led to a destruction of trees quite disproportionate to the timber obtained, and utterly incompatible with the conservation of the valuable kinds. The East India Company have had occasion to deplore the loss of their teak forests by similar neglect and mismanagement; and it is to be hoped that, ere too late, the attention of the Ceylon Government may be so directed to this important subject as to lead to the appointment of competent foresters, under whose authority and superintendence the felling of timber may be carried on.

An interesting memoir on the timber trees of Ceylon has been prepared by a native officer at Colombo, Adrian Mendis, of Morottu, carpeater-moodliar to the Royal Engineers, in which he has enumerated upwards of ninety species, which, in various parts of the island, are employed either as timber or cabinet woods.[1] Of these, the jak, the Kangtal of Bengal (_Artocarpus integrifolia_), is, next to the coco-nut and Palmyra, by far the most valuable to the Singhalese; its fruit, which sometimes attains the weight of 50 lbs., supplying food for their table, its leaves fodder for their cattle, and its trunk timber for every conceivable purpose both oeconomic and ornamental. The Jak tree, as well as the Del, or wild bread-fruit, is indigenous to the forests on the coast and in the central provinces; but, although the latter is found in the vicinity of the villages, it does not appear to be an object of special cultivation. The Jak, on the contrary, is planted near every house, and forms the shade of every garden. Its wood, at first yellow, approaches the colour of mahogany after a little exposure to the air, and resembles it at all times in its grain and marking.

[Footnote 1: Mendis' List will be found appended to the _Ceylon Calendar_ for 1854.]

The Del (_Artocarpus pubescens_) affords a valuable timber, not only for architectural purposes, but for ship-building. It and the Halmalille[1] resembling but larger than the linden tree of England, to which it is closely allied, are the favourite building woods of the natives, and the latter is used for carts, casks, and all household purposes, as well as for the hulls of their boats, from the belief that It resists the attack of the marine worms, and that some unctuous property in the wood preserves the iron work from rust.[2]

[Footnote 1: Berry a ammonilla.]

[Footnote 2: The Masula boats, which brave the formidable surf of Madrus are made of Halmalille, which is there called "Trincomalie wood" from the place of exportation.]

The Teak (_Tectona grandis_), which is superior to all others, is not a native of this island, and although largely planted, has not been altogether successful. But the satin-wood[1], in point of size and durability, is by far the first of the timber trees of Ceylon. For days together I have ridden under its magnificent shade. All the forests around Batticaloa and Trincomalie, and as far north as Jaffna, are thickly set with this valuable tree. It grows to the height of a hundred feet, with a rugged grey bark, small white flowers, and polished leaves, with a somewhat unpleasant odour. Owing to the difficulty of carrying its heavy beams, the natives only cut it near the banks of the rivers, down which it is floated to the coast, whence large quantities are exported to every part of the colony. The richly-coloured and feathery pieces are used for cabinet-work, and the more ordinary logs for building purposes, every house in the eastern province being floored and timbered with satin-wood.

[Footnote 1: Chieroxylon Swietenia.]

Another useful tree, very common in Ceylon, is the Suria[1], with flowers so like those of a tulip that Europeans know it as the tulip tree. It loves the sea air and saline soils. It is planted all along the avenues and streets in the towns near the coast, where it is equally valued for its shade and the beauty of its yellow flowers, whilst its tough wood is used for carriage shafts and gun-stocks.

[Footnote 1: Thespesia populnea.]

The forests to the east furnish the only valuable cabinet woods used in Ceylon, the chief of which is ebony[1], which grows in great abundance throughout all the flat country to the west of Trincomalie. It is a different species from the ebony of Mauritius[2], and excels it and all others in the evenness and intensity of its colour. The centre of the trunk is the only portion which furnishes the extremely black part which is the ebony of commerce; but the trees are of such magnitude that reduced logs of two feet in diameter, and varying from ten to fifteen feet in length, can readily be procured from the forests at Trincomalie.

[Footnote 1: Diospyros ebenum.]

[Footnote 2: D. reticulata.]

There is another cabinet wood, of extreme beauty, called by the natives Cadooberia. It is a bastard species of ebony[1], in which the prevailing black is stained with stripes of rich brown, approaching to yellow and pink. But its density is inconsiderable, and in durability it is far inferior to that of true ebony.

[Footnote 1: D. ebenaster.]

The Calamander[1], the most valuable cabinet wood of the island, resembling rose-wood, but much surpassing it both in beauty and durability, has at all times been in the greatest repute in Ceylon. It grows chiefly in the southern provinces, and especially in the forests at the foot of Adam's Peak; but here it has been so prodigally felled, first by the Dutch, and afterwards by the English, without any precautions for planting or production, that it has at last become exceedingly rare. Wood of a large scantling is hardly procurable at any price; and it is only in a very few localities, the principal of which is Saffragam, in the western province, that even small sticks are now to be found; one reason, assigned for this is that the heart of the tree is seldom sound, a peculiarity which extends to the Cadooberia.

[Footnote 1: D. hirsuta.]

The twisted portions, and especially the roots of the latter, yield veneers of unusual beauty, dark wavings and blotches, almost black, being gracefully disposed over a delicate fawn-coloured ground. Its density is so great (nearly 60 lbs. to a cubic foot) that it takes an exquisite polish, and is in every way adapted for the manufacture of furniture, in the ornamenting of which the native carpenters excel. The chiefs and headmen, with a full appreciation of its beauty, take particular pride in possessing specimens of this beautiful wood, roots of which they regard as most acceptable gifts.

Notwithstanding its value, the tree is nearly eradicated, and runs some risk of becoming extinct in the island; but, as it is not peculiar to Ceylon, it may be restored by fresh importations from the south-eastern coast of India, of which it is equally a native, and I apprehend that the name, _Calamander_, which was used by the Dutch, is but a corruption of "Coromandel."

Another species of cabinet wood is produced from the Nedun[1], a large tree common on the western coast; it belongs to the Pea tribe, and is allied to the Sisso of India. Its wood, which is lighter than the "Blackwood" of Bombay, is used for similar purposes.

[Footnote 1: Dalbergia lanceolaria.]

The Tamarind tree[1], and especially its fine roots, produce a variegated cabinet wood of much beauty, but of such extreme hardness as scarcely to be workable by any ordinary tool.[2]

[Footnote 1: Tamarindus Indica.]

[Footnote 2: The natives of Western India have a belief that the shade of the tamarind tree is unhealthy, if not poisonous. But in Ceylon it is an object of the people, especially in the north of the island, to build their houses under it, from the conviction that of all trees its _shade is the coolest_. In this feeling, too, the Europeans are so far disposed to concur that it has been suggested whether there may not be something peculiar in the respiration of its leaves. The Singhalese have an idea that the twigs of the ranna-wara (_Cassia auriculata_) diffuse an agreeable coolness, and they pull them for the sake of enjoying it by holding them in their hands or applied to the head. In the south of Ceylon it is called the Matura tea-tree, its leaves being infused as a substitute for tea.]

As to fruit trees, it is only on the coast, or near the large villages and towns, that they are found in any perfection. In the deepest jungle the sight of a single coco-nut towering above the other foliage is in Ceylon a never-failing landmark to intimate to a traveller his approach to a village. The natives have a superstition that the coco-nut will not grow _out of the sound of the human voice_, and will die if the village where it had previously thriven become deserted; the solution of the mystery being in all probability the superior care and manuring which it receives in such localities.[1] In the generality of the forest hamlets there are always to be found a few venerable Tamarind trees of patriarchal proportions, the ubiquitous Jak, with its huge fruits, weighing from 5 to 50 lbs. (the largest eatable fruit in the world), each springing from the rugged surface of the bark, and suspended by a powerful stalk, which attaches it to the trunk of the tree. Lime-trees, Oranges, and Shaddoks are carefully cultivated in these little gardens, and occasionally the Rose-apple and the Cachu-nut, the Pappaya, and invariably as plentiful a supply of Plantains as they find it prudent to raise without inviting the visits of the wild elephants, with whom they are especial favourites.

[Footnote 1: See Vol. II. p. 125.]

These, and the Bilimbi and Guava, the latter of which is naturalised in the jungle around every cottage, are almost the only fruits of the country; but the Pine-apple, the Mango, the Avocado-pear, the Custard-apple, the Rambutan (_Nephelium lappaceum_), the Fig, the Granadilla, and a number of other exotics, are successfully reared in the gardens of the wealthier inhabitants of the towns and villages; and within the last few years the peerless Mangustin of Malacca, the delicacy of which we can imagine to resemble that of perfumed snow, has been successfully cultivated in the gardens of Caltura and Colombo.

With the exception of the orange, the fruits of Ceylon have one deficiency, common, I apprehend, to all tropical countries. They are wanting in that piquancy which in northern climates is attributable to the exquisite perfection in which the sweet and aromatic flavours are blended with the acidulous. Either the acid is so ascendant as to be repulsive to the European palate, or the saccharine so preponderates as to render Singhalese fruit cloying and distasteful.

Still, all other defects are compensated by the coolness which pervades them; and, under the exhaustion of a blazing sun, no more exquisite physical enjoyment can be imagined than the chill and fragrant flesh of the pine-apple, or the abundant juice of the mango, which, when freshly pulled, feels as cool as iced water. But the fruit must be eaten instantly; even an interval of a few minutes after it has been gathered is sufficient to destroy the charm; for, once severed from the stem, it rapidly acquires the temperature of the surrounding air.

Sufficient admiration has hardly been bestowed upon the marvellous power displayed by the vegetable world in adjusting its own temperature, notwithstanding atmospheric fluctuations,--a faculty in the manifestation of which it appears to present a counterpart to that exhibited by animal oeconomy in regulating its heat. So uniform is the exercise of the latter faculty in man and the higher animals, that there is barely a difference of three degrees between the warmth of the body in the utmost endurable vicissitudes of heat and cold; and in vegetables an equivalent arrangement enables them in winter to keep their temperature somewhat above that of the surrounding air, and in summer to reduce it far below it. It would almost seem as if plants possessed a power of producing cold analogous to that exhibited by animals in producing heat; and of this beneficent arrangement man enjoys the benefit in the luxurious coolness of the fruit which nature lavishes on the tropics.

The peculiar organisation by which this result is obtained is not free from obscurity, but in all probability the means of adjusting the temperature of plants is simply dependent on evaporation. As regards the power possessed by vegetables of generating heat, although it has been demonstrated to exist, it is in so trifling a degree as to be almost inappreciable, except at the period of germination, when it probably arises from the consumption of oxygen in generating the carbonic acid gas which is then evolved. The faculty of retaining this warmth at night and at other times may, therefore, be referable mainly to the closing of the pores, and the consequent check of evaporation.

On the other hand, the faculty of maintaining a temperature below that of the surrounding air, can only be accounted for by referring it to the mechanical process of imbibing a continuous supply of fresh moisture from the soil, the active transpiration of which imparts coolness to every portion of the tree and its fruit. It requires this combined operation to produce the desired result; and the extent to which evaporation can bring down the temperature of the moisture received by absorption, may be inferred from the fact that Dr. Hooker, when in the valley of the Ganges, found the fresh milky juice of the Mudar (_calotropis_) to be but 72°, whilst the damp sand in the bed of the river where it grew was from 90° to 104°.

Even in temperate climates this phenomenon is calculated to excite admiration; but it is still more striking to find the like effect rather increased than diminished in the tropics, where one would suppose that the juices, especially of a small and delicate plant, before they could be cooled by evaporation, would be liable to be heated by the blazing sun.

A difficulty would also seem to present itself in the instance of fruit, whose juices, having to undergo a chemical change, their circulation would be conjectured to be slower; and in the instance of those with hard skins, such as the pomegranate, or with a tough leathery coating, like the mango, the evaporation might be imagined to be less than in those of a soft and spongy texture. But all share alike in the general coolness of the plant, so long as circulation supplies fluid for evaporation; and the moment this resource is cut off by the separation of the fruit from the tree, the supply of moisture failing, the process of refrigeration is arrested, and the charm of agreeable freshness gone.

It only remains to notice the aquatic plants, which are found in greater profusion in the northern and eastern provinces than in any other districts of the island, owing to the innumerable tanks and neglected watercourses which cover the whole surface of this once productive province, but which now only harbour the alligator, or satisfy the thirst of the deer and the elephant.

[Footnote 1: See on this subject LINDLEY'S _Introduction to Botany_, vol. ii. book ii. ch. viii. p. 215.

CARPENTER, _Animal Physiology_, ch. ix. s. 407. CARPENTER'S _Vegetable Physiology_, ch. xi. s. 407, Lond. 1848.]

The chief ornaments of these neglected sheets of water are the large red and white Lotus[1], whose flowers may be seen from a great distance reposing on their broad green leaves. In China and some parts of India the black seeds of these plants, which are not unlike little acorns in shape, are served at table in place of almonds, which they are said to resemble, but with a superior delicacy of flavour. At some of the tanks where the lotus grows in profusion in Ceylon, I tasted the seeds enclosed in the torus of the flowers, and found them white and delicately-flavoured, not unlike the small kernel of the pine cone of the Apennines. This red lotus of the island appears to be the one that Herodotus describes as abounding in the Nile in his time, but which is now extinct; with a flower resembling a rose, and a fruit in shape like a wasp's nest, and containing seeds of the size of an olive stone, and of an agreeable flavour.[2] But it has clearly no identity with those which he describes as the food of the Lotophagi of Africa, of the size of the mastic[3], sweet as a date, and capable of being made into wine.

[Footnote 1: Nelumbium speciosum.]

[Footnote 2: Herodotus, b. ii. s. 92.]

[Footnote 3: The words are "[Greek: Esti megathos hoson te tês schinou]" (Herod. b. iv. s. 177); and as [Greek: schinos] means also a _squill_ or a _sea-onion_, the fruit above referred to, as the food of the Lotophagi, must have been of infinitely larger size and in every way different from the lotus of the Nile, described in the 2nd book, as well as from the lotus in the East. Lindley records the conjecture that the article referred to by Herodotus was the _nabk_, the berry of the lote-bush (_Zizyphus lotus_), which the Arabs of Barbary still eat. (_Vegetable Kingdom_, p. 582.)]

One species of the water lily, the _Nymphæa rubra_, with small red flowers, and of great beauty, is common in the ponds near Jaffna and in the Wanny; and I found in the fosse, near the fort of Moeletivoe, the beautiful blue lotus, _N. stellata_, with lilac petals, approaching to purple in the centre, which had not previously been supposed to be a native of the island.

Another very interesting aquatic plant, which was discovered by Dr. Gardner in the tanks north of Trincomalie, is the _Desmanthus natans_, with highly sensitive leaves floating on the surface of the water. It is borne aloft by masses of a spongy cellular substance, which occur at intervals along its stem and branches, but the roots never touch the bottom, absorbing nourishment whilst floating at liberty, and only found in contact with the ground after the subsidence of water in the tanks.[1]

[Footnote 1: A species of _Utricularia_, with yellow flowers (U. stellaris), is a common water-plant in the still lakes near the fort of Colombo, where an opportunity is afforded of observing the extraordinary provision of nature for its reproduction. There are small appendages attached to the roots, which become distended with air, and thus carry the plant aloft to the surface, during the cool season. Here it floats till the operation of flowering is over, when the vesicles burst, and by its own weight it returns to the bottom of the lake to ripen its seeds and deposit them in the soil; after which the air vessels again fill, and again it re-ascends to undergo the same process of fecundation.]