Chapter XXIV: In the Planting Districts

Kurunegalla—Monastery of Lanka Tileka—On Allegalla Peak—A footprint—
Gangarowa—In the planting districts—The Wilderness of the Peak in
1849 and now—Lack of fuel—King Coffee _versus_ King Tea—Insect foes—
Cacao—A planter’s cares—Sick coolies—Names of estates.

Among the various cities which in ancient and mediæval ages successively ranked as the capital of the Isle are Kurunegalla, anciently called Hastisailapura, and Gampola, formerly called Ganga-sri-pura, ‘the sacred city beside the river.’ The former, which is fifty-eight miles from Colombo, was the royal residence and that of the precious Tooth from A.D. 1319 to A.D. 1347, when Gampola had its turn.

Taking the train from Colombo to Polgahawella station a crowded native coach carried me thence to Kurunegalla, ‘the beetle rock,’ which is so named from a huge almost bare mass of reddish gneiss rock, shaped like a gigantic beetle. The country hereabouts is dotted with these enormous red rounded rocks, one of which bears some resemblance to a kneeling elephant, and is hence called Aetagalla, ‘the rock of the tusk elephant.’ It is a goodly mass, three miles in length, and towers to a height of 600 feet above the plain and 1,096 above the sea. The pretty little town and lake lie at the base of the great rock, which is of just the same character as that at Dambool and others which we had seen on the way to Anuradhapura. Here the zoological suggestions include an ‘Eel Rock’ and a ‘Tortoise Rock.’

The country from which rise these cyclopean boulders of red rock is a level expanse of fertile rice-land, interspersed with palms and all the vegetation of the hottest districts; for hot it is in truth as is evident from the great tree-cactuses which flourish in the crevices of the rock.

An important industry of this district is plumbago-mining, or rather pit-digging, as it has hitherto been carried on somewhat superficially by native merchants. Hundreds of men are, however, employed, and thousands of tons are annually brought hence to Colombo.

The Government Agent’s house, in which I was hospitably entertained—a pleasant, red-tiled bungalow, with wide, white-pillared verandah— occupies the site of the Maligawa, the ancient palace of the kings of Kandy, as is attested by suggestive sculptured stones and fragments of pillars, a favourite resting-place for peacocks of splendid plumage.

But more striking than these are the majestic trees which cover the ground as in a magnificent park, their huge stems supported by wide-spreading roots, which cover the ground for a very wide radius, forming buttresses like low walls. Some of these are so deep that a man standing near the base of the tree can only just rest his arm on one of the roots. The most remarkable of these are the Kon and Labu trees; there are also great india-rubber trees, whose roots, though not forming such high walls, are equally remarkable and labyrinthine.

The town is little more than a village, with native bazaar and neat bungalows, each in a pleasant garden, inhabited chiefly by Burghers of Dutch and Portuguese extraction. Steep paths and rock-hewn steps lead to the summit of the rock, near which is a level space between two shoulders of rock—a green oasis of cocoa-palms and other fruit-trees, among which stands a large dagoba containing a model of the holy footprint on Adam’s Peak (the Peak itself, about forty miles distant, being visible from this point). Pilgrims come here from all parts of the island, partly to visit some ruins on the extreme summit, which are those of a temple wherein Buddha’s venerated tooth was stored during four reigns, after it had been brought here from Pollanarua in A.D. 1319.

Of course, the view from this isolated height is very extensive and very fine, but the heat, radiating from the sun-scorched rocks, was well-nigh unbearable, and suggestive of sunstroke, which, however, strange to say, is of very rare occurrence in Ceylon. I was glad to descend to the cool shade of the great trees, and to drive at sunset beside the still lake and its lilies. We went to call on the Moodliar, to see a bright yellow parroquet, which is quite unique. It was captured in a flock of the usual bright emerald-green ones, which abound here, as elsewhere, throughout the low country.

A few days later found me at Gampola, which for a little season succeeded Kurunegalla as capital of Ceylon. It is a very pretty place, and I have happy memories of pleasant evenings of peaceful boating on the lovely bamboo-fringed river; but on this occasion I only halted here on my way with friends to visit the very interesting ancient Buddhist temple of Lanka Tileka, which was erected by King Bhuwaneka-Bahu IV. in A.D. 1344. In Ceylon, a temple which has only stood for five centuries is comparatively modern, but this one is at least old enough to be exceedingly picturesque, with walls, partly red, partly white, several stories high, and high-pitched roofs with dull-red tiles.

It is most beautifully situated on the crown of a great mass of red rock, which rises in the centre of a rock basin, like an inverted cup standing in a bowl. I own the simile is not romantic, but it just describes how the grand rock rises from the deep circular valley, all devoted to rice-fields, which at the time of my visit were flooded, like innumerable blue curving lakes, separated by their embankments.

With the exception of the bare summit, on which the monastery stands so conspicuously, the whole basin is densely clothed with the most luxuriant tropical vegetation that can be conceived. From a dense undergrowth of huge plantain and banana-leaves tower clusters of tall areca, kitool, cocoa, and various other palms, with here and there a magnificent talipat-palm rearing its stately head far above its fellows, or else a dark bread-fruit or jak tree. (The kitool is the palm with fronds like gigantic maidenhair fern.) In short, all manner of fruit- and flower-bearing trees flourish in perfection in this sheltered valley.

We drove as far as wheels could travel, and there bearers, with a wicker arm-chair securely attached to bamboos, were in readiness to carry me the rest of the way. The Government Agent had kindly sent instructions to the Ratamahatmeya, the great local authority, who, with permission of the chief priest, had prepared for us the Bana Madoowa, or preaching-hall, which stands a short distance below the temple. Here we found two comfortable bedrooms and dining-room hung with calico, and otherwise ready for us. Strange to say, only one-fifth of this temple is in the hands of the Buddhists. The other four parts are _dewali_ or Hindoo, to which, we were told, there was ‘no admittance,’ and that even the Buddhist priests might not or would not enter.

I regretted this the less, as the exterior is so picturesque that I gladly devoted all my time to secure a large sketch of the whole scene from across the valley, in presence of a crowd of Singhalese women and children, who, however, fled at every heavy rain-shower. The leeches were not so easily routed, and were most persistent in their attentions; but one cannot have such glorious vegetation without some drawbacks, and the loveliness of the clear moonlight fully compensated for the tearful day.

One of the temple buildings is edged with extremely effective hanging tiles edging the upper roof. Each forms a right angle, the ornamental front being about fifteen inches in length, decorated with a flower scroll and imaginary lion. Some of these had fallen (for the place was much neglected), and, with the consent of the priest, I carried one back to Britain, thinking that someone would be glad of the design as a decorative touch for a school or fancy dairy; but it only found a welcome in a museum, I think at Inverness.

Returning by rail from Gampola to Kaduganawa station, I was there met by very kind friends, who had brought a chair fastened to bamboos, and a party of luggage-coolies to carry me and my goods to their delightful bungalow (Oolanakanda), perched far up the steep face of Allegalla Peak. The many pleasant days which on several occasions I spent in that sweet home, with its music and flowers and sunny faces, are among my happiest memories of Ceylon. I only wish it were possible for words to convey something of the charm of such surroundings, of majestic crags, clear streams, and fruit-bearing trees, with varied cultivation, chiefly coffee, on the most impossible-looking ground—so steep and rocky; and all this at such a height that, looking up from the railway far below, one could only imagine an eagle’s eerie perched at such a height.

Of course the outlook thence was a dream of delight, whether on clear days, when each field in the great cultivated plain well-nigh two thousand feet below us, and each farthest mountain peak, were faultlessly defined; or when, as occasionally in the early mornings, the whole valley was hidden by fleecy clouds of rolling mist, like a vast sea, dotted with dark wooded isles, which are the summits of hills. So steep was the hill-face, that it seemed as though we could almost have thrown pebbles from those cool heights to alight in the tropics only a trifle above the sea-level.

COFFEE FIELDS ON THE SLOPES OF ALLEGALLA PEAK.
(On the summit there is a _partly_ natural indentation, which
duplicates _the_ Footprint.)
]

One day we climbed to the very summit of the Peak (3,394 feet above the sea), there to inspect a large artificial hollow in the rock in imitation of Buddha’s footprint on Adam’s Peak. This one is well defined, and makes no pretension to being genuine. It is simply representative, and worshippers who cannot make pilgrimage to the true Sri Pada climb up here, to make their simple offerings, while looking towards Adam’s Peak, which rises sharp and clear on the horizon.

At that high level even unsettled weather was a positive gain, for the radiant sunshine alternating with down-pours of rain produced endlessly varied cloud and storm effects, and certain sunsets remain stamped on my memory, when the uplifting of heavy curtains of purple cloud revealed dreamy glimpses of blue-green sky, and then gleams of fiery gold and lurid red shed an unearthly light on clouds and mountains.

Before each rain-storm there was a strange oppressive stillness, followed by an awakening breeze, with stormy gusts sweeping up chilling mists, which preceded the heavy rain. A few moments later and down it poured in sheets, transforming dry paths into beds of rushing torrents, and swelling tiny rivulets to impassable floods.

One day I was sitting alone under the shelter of some great masses of rock fallen from the crag overhead, and being absorbed in my sketching, took no heed of a terrific thunderstorm which broke right overhead, followed by pitiless rain. The friendly rocks sheltered me so effectually, that I purposed remaining in sanctuary till the storm was over, when suddenly, down came a torrent from the hill above, pouring right through my nest.

In the sudden scramble to save my various possessions, I laid my paint-box on a high ledge and clambered back to rescue my picture and its waterproof cover. By the time I got out of this trap, the water was up to my knees, and all the way back the path was crossed by countless extempore streams, all above my ankles. It was a tiring walk, and I was glad to reach the friendly bungalow once more.

But imagine my dismay on finding that, in the hurry of flight, I had left the precious paint-box on the rocky ledge, whence in all probability it had been washed away by the flood! Such a loss would have been utterly irreparable; so there was nothing for it but to divest myself of all unnecessary raiment, and retrace my steps as quickly as possible, in the hope of retrieving this dear companion of my wanderings. To my inexpressible delight I found it high and dry, the spate having passed just below it, so I returned in triumph.

By the time these mountain torrents have reached the railway level far below, they have gathered such volume and such impetus, that a sudden thunderstorm sometimes renders the line impassable, owing to the rush of waters across it, or falling in muddy cascades right on to it. Trains occasionally receive shower-baths by no means in the programme, and the rice-fields in the valley are all suddenly transformed to lakes.

This was my first experience of a planter’s home, one of many in all parts of the Isle, differing in many respects, according to situation, and consequent cultivation, but all alike in the warm-hearted cordial hospitality which made each successive visit so pleasant.

Another delightful home in which I found repeated welcome was Gangarowa, a most lovely estate on the banks of the beautiful Mahavelli River, opposite the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens.

This was the first plantation started by Sir Edward Barnes in 1825, when he had opened up the country by making the road to Kandy. All planting being then experimental, a little of everything was tried, so that instead of the monotony of a large estate all devoted to one product, Gangarowa had the charm of infinite variety. Sad experience has now taught most planters the wisdom of not carrying all their eggs in one basket; but when I was in Ceylon, King Coffee reigned supreme, and in many districts literally nothing else was cultivated over an area of many miles. In every direction, as far as the eye could reach, up hill and down dale, it was all coffee, coffee, coffee.

Of course, such uniformity was singularly unattractive, and as I passed from one great coffee district to another in various parts of Dimbula, Dickoya, Maskeliya, Kalibooka, The Knuckles, Deltotte, &c., I confess to having often longed for some of the vanished glories of the forests of which I had heard so much from earlier settlers on the Isle, who had told me how between the clearings there remained hundreds of exquisite little nooks with streams trickling under tree-ferns, green dragonflies skimming over quiet pools and glorious forest-trees overhead; instead of which I found every ravine denuded, and the totally unshaded streams avenging themselves by washing as much soil as possible from the roots of the nearest coffee-trees.

But if those earlier settlers saw Ceylon in greater beauty than do those of the present generation, they also had to face very much harder conditions of life, living perhaps sixteen miles or more from even a cart-road, and feeding on salt beef and biscuit—never by any chance tasting milk, bread, or potatoes.

Now few need have such rough fare, and many of the married men have the cosiest of houses, enlivened by music and singing, new books and magazines, happy healthy children, excellent food, pleasant intercourse with neighbours—in short, all that can tend to make the wheels of life glide smoothly.

In truth, it is difficult to realise that it is less than half a century since the whole Central Province, right up to the very summit of the highest mountains, was clothed with dense impenetrable forests, so rapidly have they disappeared before the diligent and ruthless hands of indefatigable planters. Indeed, so precious has every acre become, that comparatively few men even allow themselves a garden round their own bungalows, though with the smallest care such a garden becomes a tiny paradise, where orange, lime, and other fruit-bearing trees, gardenias and scarlet lilies, and all manner of fragrant and gorgeous blossoms grow in endless profusion.

A few such gardens we did see, and therein lingered with delight, beneath the cool shadow of large orange-trees, laden with blossom and ripe fruit, on which we feasted with all the more enjoyment after toiling for hours through dreary clearings. As a rule, however, such an oasis is rarely to be met with; and I grieve to say that even where some tasteful planters of the last generation had bordered their roads with hedges of delicious roses, a joy to all passers-by, new owners, in their thirst for gold, uprooted the blessed flowers in order to gain room for one more row of nasty little bushes (as I delighted in calling the young coffee-trees, to aggravate my friends of the planting community).

Of course, in a wholesale clearing, no precious morsel of forest _could_ be reserved; so the man who craved for one shady tree to overshadow his house must plant it himself and wait till it grew, otherwise he could hope for nothing more imposing than his own coffee shrubs, whose allotted height is 3 feet or 3 feet 6 inches, according to their position; beyond this, the British planter does not suffer his bushes to grow, though round the native houses they attain to the size of Portugal laurels in this country, and notwithstanding this liberty bear a luxuriant crop of scarlet berries.

So the general effect of a district which has recently been taken into cultivation is singularly hideous. Far as the eye can reach, range beyond range of hills all show the same desolate expanse of blackened tree-trunks, for the most part felled, but a certain number still upright; a weird and dreary scene, as you would think had you to toil up and down these steep hills in the burning sun, thinking, oh! how regretfully, of the cool green forest shade, which has been so ruthlessly destroyed.

Sometimes this contrast was brought very vividly before us when the path along which we were to travel formed a boundary line between the reclaimed and unreclaimed land—the one so dismal, with scorching sun beating in all its fierceness on the black prostrate trunks, tossed in wild confusion among the rocks, the other fresh and pleasant to the eye, with an undergrowth of exquisite tree-ferns and a thousand other forms of beauty growing in rank luxuriance, and telling of cool hidden streamlets that trickle beneath the shade of great trees, many of them matted with brilliant-flowering creepers, or studded with tufts of orchids—flowers of the mist.

Very soon the glory of the primeval forests will be altogether a tale of the past so far as the hill districts are concerned, for a few years hence, the tree-ferns and scarlet rhododendrons, and all such useless jungle loveliness, will have utterly vanished. Nature is very forgiving, however; for wherever a planter is found so careless as to suffer an encroaching weed (and I am bound to confess such graceful slovenliness is rare), she clothes the steep banks and cuttings along the road with a wilderness of dainty ferns of every sort, and the richest tangle of a magnified edition of our stag’s-horn moss, which grows in wildest luxuriance.

After all, even while bewailing the destruction of beautiful forests, we were driven to confess that, but for the labours of the planters, the glories of the interior must have remained to us sealed books. As it was, we travelled hither and thither, and explored scenes which but a few years ago would have been to us simply unattainable.

When in 1840 Lieutenant Skinner ascended Adam’s Peak, and looking down from that high summit on range beyond range all densely clothed with pathless forest, totally impenetrable save where elephants had cleared roads for themselves, he foretold that this region was destined ere long to become the garden of Ceylon—a garden of European as well as tropical productions, peopled with European as well as Asiatic faces—he was jeered at for his prediction.

Yet he maintained his conviction; for ‘who,’ he said, ‘can enjoy this perfect climate—thermometer at 68°—without feeling that it would be conferring a blessing on humanity, by clearing this trackless wilderness of from 200,000 to 300,000 acres of forest, to be the means of removing some 20,000 of the panting, half-famished creatures from the burning sandy plains of Southern India to such comparative paradise, and also benefiting our own Singhalese people inhabiting the margin of this wilderness, now compelled to hide in places scarcely accessible to man, in order to render their dwellings inaccessible to elephants, and many of them unable to cultivate a grain of paddy or to procure a morsel of salt?’

Major Skinner lived long enough to see the ancient inhabitants of the Isle, the immigrant labourers from the coast of Coromandel, and European planters all working peacefully side by side on reclaimed lands. But, sad to say, the opening up of the country and the influx of foreign gold did not prove unmixed advantages. In 1849 Major Skinner had to report that ‘the most profligate of the low-country Singhalese had flocked from the maritime provinces into the interior, and spread their contaminating influences far and wide over a previously sober, orderly, honest race. Robberies and bloodshed had become familiar to the Kandyan in districts where, a few years before, any amount of property would have been perfectly safe in the open air.’

Moreover, he had to report that the vice of intemperance had become an enormous evil, and one which was rapidly gaining ground. The system of the Government sale of arrack-farms was already in full force, and yielding a revenue of about £60,000 a year.

‘It is, of course,’ he says, ‘the object of the renter to sublet as many of these taverns as possible; they are established in almost every village of any size throughout the interior, often to the great annoyance of the inhabitants, and in opposition to the headmen. To give the people a taste for the use of spirits, it is often, at first, necessary to distribute it gratuitously, the tavern-keepers well knowing that, with the use, the abuse follows as a certainty. I have known districts in which, some years ago, not one in a hundred could be induced to taste spirits, where drunkenness now prevails to such an extent that villagers have been known to pawn their crops upon the ground to tavern-keepers for arrack.’

Forty years have elapsed since those lines were penned, and of those great forests, then known as ‘The Wilderness of the Peak,’ scarcely a vestige remains, fully 300,000 acres being now under cultivation, traversed by carriage-roads, and dotted over with European homes and such important villages as Maskeliya, Dickoya, St Clair, Craigie-Lea, &c.

So fully has the prediction being carried out, that Nanuoya, the present railway terminus, which twenty years ago lay in the heart of untouched jungle, is now a centre of such busy life that last year it received and despatched no less than 21,090 telegrams on railway business, without counting private messages;[201] while a daily average of seventy goods waggons, laden with very varied products, were despatched thence, and as many more daily arrived from the low country.

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Footnote 201:

At Colombo, in the same year, the railway telegrams received and
despatched numbered 20,955, and post-office telegrams 50,487.

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Now that the steed has been stolen, and vast tracts totally denuded of forest, Government has wisely interfered to preserve some fragments in the remaining districts, and also by reserving a narrow belt of timber on the banks of streams and around their source; also by prohibiting the clearing of mountain ridges. But so ruthless and utterly improvident has been the wholesale destruction of the forests, that now, whatever timber is necessary for estate purposes, such as building or any form of carpentering, must be purchased, and planters in many districts have to employ coolies on purpose to fetch firewood from long distances.

Efforts are now being made to correct past errors by planting foreign trees, especially the quick-growing Australian trees, which adapt themselves most readily to the soil. Amongst these are the yarrah, casuarina, wattle, and other acacias. The wattle, however, from the extraordinary distance to which it spreads its roots, proved such an encroaching colonist, that it became necessary to eradicate it totally. But the various Eucalypti, _i.e._, the Australian gums, have proved true friends in need, and develop in a manner worthy of their great Fatherland. On some estates at an elevation of 5,000 feet, blue gums have been found to grow a foot per month in the rainy season, and about six inches per month for the other half of the year! So these gigantic young Australians attain a height of upwards of sixty feet within five years!

As I have said, at the time of my visit to Ceylon, King Coffee held undisputed sway, and his name was on every lip. Coffee—coffee—coffee—its rise and fall in the market—its snowy blossoms—its promise of crop—the ravages of coffee-bug or leaf-disease, these were the topics on which the changes were rung morning, noon, and night—but especially at night over the pipes, which took (what seemed to us, vainly courting sleep) such an interminable time to smoke. For this is one disadvantage in the construction of all Eastern houses that I have ever seen. They are so built that every room has the benefit of all its neighbour’s conversation, to say nothing of that which goes on in the verandah outside the windows. Moreover, to secure ventilation, the interior of most bungalows is merely divided by partitions reaching to a certain height, and above that is the tightly-stretched white canvas which checks the falling of fragments from the high-peaked roof.

In the mountain districts the houses are of a somewhat British type, having boarded floors, well raised above the ground as a precaution against damp, and fireplaces in most rooms. Where the carriage of brick from the low country, or even stone from the mountain quarry, would be too costly, these houses are chiefly built of wood trellised with bamboo, and the interstices filled with clay and plastered over.

Alas! very soon after the days of which I speak, King Coffee fell from his throne; the grievous leaf-disease appeared in all its virulence, and tens of thousands of acres on the most flourishing estates were left desolate, clothed with withered diseased shrubs scarcely fit for firewood.

This cruel disease (_Hemileia vastatrix_) is a fungus which appears in the form of orange-coloured spots on the leaf, which presently drops off, and the shrub is sometimes left leafless and apparently dead. Perhaps soon afterwards it is again covered with leaves, but again the deadly fungus reappears. It was first observed in Ceylon in May 1869, on a few plants in one of the eastern districts, whence it attacked a few acres, then spread like wildfire over the whole coffee region. It appeared simultaneously in other Eastern countries—came and conquered— while grubs attacked the roots and brown bugs sapped the life-blood of the once flourishing shrubs.

Everything that ingenuity and despair could suggest was tried in vain— collecting and burning the diseased leaves, high manuring, wholesale pruning. The destructive fungus held its ground, and the sorely-tried planters in too many cases were literally driven to abandon the lands which they could not afford to work, and to seek employment under new-comers, who, after the lapse of a few sad years, brought fresh supplies of gold wherewith to test new products. Tea, cinchona, cacao, and various other crops were planted experimentally with the result that Ceylon is now more flourishing than ever, with splendidly varied products, including coffee, which in some districts is now as fine and as healthy as ever; but the reigning monarch now is TEA, whose supremacy is scarcely likely ever to be disputed.

But before speaking of this new king, I will briefly glance at the history of coffee in Ceylon. To begin with, it is a singular fact that not only a very large proportion of all the coffee that once clothed these thousand hills in Ceylon, but also the coffee plantations of many other lands, are all lineally descended from one plant, which, about A.D. 1690, was raised in a garden at Batavia by the Dutch governor, General Van Hoorne, to whom a few seeds had been presented by a trader from the Arabian Gulf.

These took so kindly to the soil of Java, that coffee plantations were established, and a plant was sent to the Botanic Gardens at Amsterdam. Thence young plants, reared from its seeds, were forwarded to Surinam, which in its turn sent a supply to various of the West Indian Isles. Wherever the young plants arrived, plantations were started, and meanwhile Java had sent supplies to Sumatra, Celebes, Bali, the Philippines, and Ceylon.

To the latter, however, the plant had already been brought, probably by Arab traders, but the secret of its fragrant berries had remained undiscovered. It was planted as an ornamental shrub about the king’s palace, and near the temples of Buddha, on whose altars its delicate starry blossoms were laid as offerings. A beverage was prepared from its leaves, which also found favour in making curry, but it was not till the Dutch revealed the hidden mystery, that the art of roasting coffee-beans dawned upon them.

The Dutch, however, committed the blunder of making their plantations in the low-lying, thoroughly tropical districts of Galle and Negombo, both on the sea-coast. The result was highly unfavourable, and in 1739 the attempt to cultivate coffee was abandoned by the foreigners, but carried on by the Singhalese, who continued growing it on a small scale.

This continued till about the year 1825, when the English Governor, Sir Edward Barnes, having opened up the hill-country by making a road to Kandy, bethought him of making an experimental plantation at this height. He obtained splendid crops from the virgin soil of those rich forest-lands, and so successful an example was quickly followed. Free grants of Crown-land were so eagerly taken up, that 5_s._ per acre was charged, at which price some men abstained from buying.

Forty years later, choice land in full cultivation was sold at prices ranging from £100 to £130 per acre.

But ere then, the fortunes of coffee-planters were subject to strange vicissitudes. The golden harvest reaped by those first in the field attracted an eager throng of speculators of every rank, all hasting to secure Ceylon estates, and it has been stated that something like £5,000,000 was thus invested, when suddenly, in 1845, there came a terrible financial crisis in Europe, the effects of which on prices and credit shook the new industry of Ceylon to its very foundations.

Then, as a climax of evil, came the declaration of Free Trade, admitting the coffee of Java and Brazil to British markets on equal terms with that of Ceylon. These tidings of woe produced a panic which resulted in wide-spread ruin. In the consternation of the moment, estates were forced into the market and sold for a tithe or a twentieth of the money that had been expended on them. One estate, which three years previously had been purchased for £15,000, was sold for £440; two purchased for £10,000 apiece respectively realised £500 and £350; while for others no offer could be obtained, so they were abandoned and allowed to relapse to jungle. It has been estimated that probably one-tenth of the estates originally opened were thus abandoned.

Yet so quickly does time bring its revenges, that twenty years later the scale was reversed, and estates bought for a few hundreds were sold for many thousands sterling. In the midst of this lamentable crisis, the Bank of Ceylon stopped payment, losing heavily on large loans advanced to planters. Its business was, however, taken up by the Western Bank of India, which thereupon assumed the name of the Oriental Bank Corporation. It must be noted as a singular coincidence, that the career commenced under such adverse influences should have ended during the late almost equally calamitous time of commercial depression, in like manner rising phœnix-like from its own ashes in the form of the New Oriental Bank Corporation.

By 1870 about 150,000 acres of mountain forest had been cleared and replaced by coffee, of which the annual export rose to 974,333 cwts., representing a value not far short of £5,000,000. That proved to be the highest point ever attained in the fulfilment of the coffee-planter’s dream—a vision golden indeed, but, like the splendour of a gorgeous sunset, it heralded the stormy change which too quickly followed. A little cloud had been rising, at first scarcely deemed worthy of notice, yet all too quickly it had overshadowed the whole land, and the fair crops were all stricken by cruel blight. It was the old story of the seven lean kine which devoured the fat fair kine of previous years, for the years that followed were truly years of famine.

The destroying angel in the present instance came in the form of the humble fungus of which I have already spoken—the orange-coloured spots on the leaves. At first it was hoped that it might prove merely local and be stamped out. That hope, however, proved delusive, for in an incredibly short period it overspread the whole land, and was unhappily exported even to the young colony of Fiji, where coffee, introduced with much care by Government, had previously been flourishing. To make matters worse, a green bug, as thirsty as the brown bug of past years, came to feast on the life-juices of the poor sick shrubs.

For some years the story of Ceylon was one cry of lamentation and mourning and woe. The fair Isle seemed sick unto death, and many gave up all hope of her recovery. Night seemed settling down to ever-deepening darkness, a night of chill mists, in which ‘poortith cauld’ entered unbidden—the first guest that ever failed of a welcome to the ever-hospitable homes of the Ceylon planters. Then many a brave hard-working man, who had invested his whole capital, and probably borrowed money besides on the estate that seemed so secure, found it totally impossible to tide over the evil hour.

Where the calamity was so wide-spread as to cripple some of the great mercantile firms and involve all in serious anxiety, it became a hopeless matter for individuals to obtain credit, and when no money was forthcoming even to pay coolies’ wages, there was, in many cases, no alternative but simply to abandon the land, and thousands of acres were thus left to relapse into jungle, and the estate buildings were left to go to ruin.

True to the axiom that misfortunes never come singly, the Oriental Bank, which in the terrible crisis of 1845 had so gallantly come to the rescue, now (partly owing to heavy insular losses) found itself compelled to stop payment, thereby adding so seriously to the general commercial complication as to threaten general bankruptcy. In this very grave complication, the Governor, the Hon. Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, took upon himself the responsibility of giving Government security for all the Bank’s notes circulating in the island, to the value of 3,600,000 rupees—a prompt and energetic measure, which restored public confidence and averted untold mischief.

Never was there a more splendid instance of the advantage of acting for the best and asking leave afterwards. It was a tremendous responsibility for a Colonial Governor to undertake, and there is every reason to believe that had the question been referred first to the Home Government it would have been vetoed. As it was, it proved a splendid success, and saved many a house from ruin. Equally successful was the establishment of Government currency notes, which not only relieved the island from temporary difficulty, but already yield the colonial exchequer an annual profit approaching 200,000 rupees.

The darkest hour is ever next the dawning, and shortly before the coffee crisis had become serious, experimental tea plantations had been started at various altitudes, and all with complete success, the snowy blossoms of the tea shrubs—_Camellia theifera_—forming a pleasing variety on the monotony of the ever-present coffee, beautiful as it was, with its sheets of fragrant blossoms or its clusters of green, yellow, scarlet, and crimson cherries. Here then was a rainbow of promise for the future, and such planters as were still able to raise sufficient capital for another venture grasped the situation, and grappled with the new industry with the semi-despairing energy of men who knew it to be their last resource.

Happily, on many estates it was decided not at once to uproot diseased coffee, but give it a chance of recovery, while tea shrubs were planted all over the ground; and well it is that this was done, as, in many cases, on estates which had been abandoned as past hope, the leafless bushes, which were apparently dead, recovered as if from a trance, and putting forth fresh leaves, yielded fair crops of berries, albeit struggling for existence with the too luxuriant weeds and scrub, which had been allowed to grow unheeded. On estates where it has been again taken into cultivation, excellent returns have been obtained, notably in Uva, where on a single branch, which in September 1890 was cut as ‘a specimen’ of the crop on the Albion estate, no less than 954 berries were counted.

So there is now, once more, good hope for the future of coffee, and its advocates point out how scourges well-nigh as grievous as leaf-disease have ravaged certain crops in divers lands, yet have eventually worn themselves out. Thus in Ceylon about the year 1866 coffee was grievously afflicted by a black bug, which was first observed in 1843 on a few bushes in the district of Madulsima, but thence spread and multiplied till it had attacked every estate, and was officially recognised as a permanent pest; yet so completely has it passed away, that it now ranks as a comparatively rare visitor.

While searching for any natural cause which might account for the origin of a plague so virulent and wide-spread as the leaf-disease, it has been suggested that some such result very frequently follows the disturbance of Nature’s system of blending innumerable varieties of vegetation.

Man clears great tracts of forest or plain, and plants the whole with one product, and ere long his vines develop phylloxera, his potatoes are attacked by blight or Colorado-beetle, his great wheat-plains are spoiled by rust. In Mysore a slimy leaf-disease attacks his coffee; in Brazil, and likewise in Dominica, great tracts of the same are destroyed by burrowing grub; and so here in like manner vast districts, hitherto clothed with all manner of trees, shrubs, ferns, and grasses, are suddenly stripped to be henceforth devoted to the growth of one shrub, and that a shrub which requires the aid of divers manures to stimulate its growth.

It is self-evident that when once the special foe of such a product has discovered such unlimited feeding-ground, it is not likely to abandon the country very quickly. Nevertheless, as I have shown, such scourges do wear themselves out in time, and though coffee can never regain its former undisputed dominion in Ceylon, its cultivation is now once more taking a fair place among profitable industries.

A very remarkable feature in the successive cultivation of coffee and tea has been the discovery that these two plants derive their sustenance from totally different elements in the soil, so that an abandoned coffee-field is practically virgin soil as regards tea. The latter seems warranted to flourish in all soils and at all altitudes, plantations within half a dozen miles of the sea, and not 150 feet above sea-level, yielding as excellent returns as those at an altitude of 6,000 feet. So extraordinary is the talent of this hardy shrub for adapting itself to circumstances, that, although its habit is to send out lateral roots, which in some cases are as thick as a man’s thumb, and extend ten or twelve feet from the stem, yet if it fails thereby to secure sufficient nourishment, it strikes a strong tap-root six or eight feet down to the lower soil, even penetrating cabook, and securing itself to the fissure of some subterranean rock, and drawing nourishment from land never reached by the coffee, which is a surface-feeder.

I have already referred[202] to the amazingly rapid extension of the tea industry in Ceylon, so need not now recur to that subject. Of course tea _may_ develop a special disease, but as yet there has been no symptom of such a thing. Wherever it has been grown in other countries, it has proved remarkably hardy and free from disease. Certainly blights of green-fly and red-spiders have given some trouble on Indian estates, but so they do in English rose-gardens. A note of warning was sounded in 1884 when an insect named _Helopeltis Antonii_, which has proved a grave foe to tea in India and Java, and is the worst enemy of the chocolate-tree, appeared in Ceylon. Happily, however, it does not seem to have gained a footing in the Isle.

-----

Footnote 202:

See p. 5.

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A more dangerous enemy is the ever-present, ever-active white ant, which was never known to attack living coffee-bushes, but shows a great liking for flourishing young tea-trees, and has done grave damage in the Ratnapura district, and in some other places even 2,500 feet above the sea-level.

In Southern India its chief foe is the porcupine, which has at least the merit of size (better than battling with myriads of scarcely visible foes). It goes about the tea-fields at night, cutting right through the roots, and grubbing up the bushes apparently out of sheer venom, as it does not seem to eat even the roots. But its love of potatoes gives the Neilgherry planter a chance; he prepares little enclosed patches of potatoes guarded with spring-guns, and thus disposes of a good many of these troublesome diggers, whose flesh is as highly acceptable to his coolies as is that of coffee-rats fried in cocoa-nut oil to the coolies of Ceylon, where swarms of the said rats sometimes attack a plantation and nibble off branches to get at the cherries.

Another foe which they turn to equally good account is the pig-rat or bandicoot, which grows to nearly two feet in length. It is a clean feeder, with flesh resembling pork, and makes a much-appreciated curry. In some districts—_e.g._, Hantane—serious damage to coffee is due to wild pigs, which grub up the bushes, and involve constant watching. These also are foes worth the trouble of slaying. The merry, frolicsome, little grey squirrel, with its handsome dark stripes and large bushy tail, is not often molested, although rather a serious poacher, as he delights in the ripe red cherries, or rather in the beans which he finds within them.

Amongst other strong points in favour of tea _versus_ coffee, one is that, whereas the harvesting of the latter is entirely dependent on a few days of fine weather at certain seasons, that of tea goes on, more or less, all the year round, the warm steamy climate of Ceylon, produced by floods of sunshine alternating with heavy rain, being eminently suited for the production of luxuriant foliage. The tree is no sooner stripped of its leaves, than it puts forth young shoots in place of those gathered, which are immediately dried artificially, by processes so purely mechanical, that no handling is allowed; all is done automatically, thus securing the most rigorous cleanliness—a very marked feature in favour of Ceylon tea _versus_ that of China.

An initial expense in the change from coffee to tea cultivation has been owing to the fact that, whereas coffee is transported to Colombo, there to undergo its various stages of preparation for the market, tea must all be prepared on the estates, involving new buildings and special machinery. Moreover, the grave error of the wholesale clearing of forests is thereby brought vividly home to the planters, who are now compelled to buy fuel at a high cost, not only for culinary purposes, but for tea-drying.

To supply this need, Eucalypti, blue gum, and many Australian trees have, as we have seen, been successfully planted on hills and patenas. But though the eucalyptus rapidly shoots up to a very great height, it has in many cases been killed by the ravages of a minute insect, myriads of which attack the tree and bore right through its stem.

Prominent among the industries which have only begun to develop since the temporary failure of coffee is the culture of the beautiful cacao or chocolate tree (_Theobroma Cacao_, ‘the food of the gods’), which had long been grown in Ceylon as an ornamental shrub, without a thought of its commercial value. And very ornamental it is, forming a very much more attractive plantation than either closely pruned tea or coffee shrubs. In four years it grows to a height of about sixteen feet, with luxuriant masses of large, handsome leaves, casting a dark cool shade.

It bears small pink and white blossoms, which develop into magnificent rough oblong pods as large as a man’s two hands. These, as they ripen, assume very varied and rich colours, the Caraccas cacao-pods changing from green to white and golden-yellow; that imported from Trinidad becoming crimson and maroon and purple. When open, they reveal a bed of sticky pulp, much appreciated by native children, wherein lie embedded from twenty to thirty of the precious beans or ‘nibs,’ which, when roasted and mixed with sugar, vanilla, and other things, form the various preparations in which this ‘food of the gods’ (as Linnæus so happily named it) is familiar to us.

To obtain these, however, the beans must first travel to Europe, amateur efforts at producing home-made cacao in Ceylonese homes having proved eminently unsatisfactory, whereas tea prepared on the estates is so perfect, that tea-drinking has been largely developed.

Of course, there was much to learn regarding the conditions of successful cacao cultivation—the exact amount of shade required[203] and protection from wind, the necessity for good soil and sufficient rainfall—all these had to be learnt by experience, and the young industry received a severe shock in 1885 owing to the prolonged drought, which favoured the ravages of an insect pest, causing the death of many young trees and inducing some planters to abandon this culture. This, however, proved but a temporary check, as Ceylon cacao now commands a high price in European markets.

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Footnote 203:

These problems have to be puzzled out with regard to each separate
product. For instance, with regard to coffee, it is found that on
elevations of from 2,000 to 6,000 feet above the sea no shade is
required, as the clouds suffice. But at lower levels moderate shade is
found advantageous, especially if afforded by remunerative trees, such
as cacao-shrubs, which in their turn can be shaded by tall
cocoa-palms.

-----

Of all the new products, none gave such rapid and valuable returns at the time of the most grievous depression as cinchona, the bark of which yields the quinine so precious as a tonic and preventive of fever, as also in counteracting the craving for opium and other stimulants. Some seeds imported from South America had been sown in the Government garden at Hackgalla in 1861, and chemical analysis had proved the island-grown produce to be of such excellent quality—fully equal to that sold by English and French chemists at a guinea and thirty francs per ounce—that its cultivation had been encouraged by the offer of free gifts of young plants; but so entirely were the whole community under the dominion of King Coffee, that even when a planter of an experimental turn of mind converted a corner of his estate into a cinchona plantation, the next proprietor rooted it out, grudging every inch that was not devoted to coffee.

But when that failed, men bethought them of the hitherto neglected cinchona, the value of which in their eyes was perhaps further enhanced by the fact that the young plants were no longer offered at the Government nurseries as a free gift, but at the rate of five rupees per thousand. Within six years about four million young plants were thus disposed of, and plantations were formed throughout the hill-country on all manner of soil and at all possible altitudes, both above and below the coffee zone.

The methods of cultivation and of obtaining the largest quantity of bark without killing the poor trees in the process of partial flaying, were so very experimental, that in some cases this cinchona-planting proved a failure.[204] It is a peculiarly uncertain crop to raise, as there is no security that good plants will grow from even the best seed taken from the best plants. But the plantations on suitable soil and judiciously treated yielded very large returns, as may be inferred from the rapid development of the export of cinchona bark which in 1872 amounted only to 11,547 lbs., but by 1887 had reached well-nigh 15,000,000 lbs.

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Footnote 204:

Planters more than most men, can only learn in the hard school of
experience. Thus, in 1884 half a million of cinchona trees, some of
which were sixteen years of age, were killed by an unusually hard
frost at Ootacamund, in the Madras Province. By this unexpected
visitation several well-established plantations were almost wholly
destroyed.

-----

These figures, however, do not represent unalloyed profit. For, strange to say, whereas in past years cinchona-trees three years of age have been known to yield upwards of ten per cent. of sulphate of quinine, the average produce now shipped does not exceed two per cent. This deterioration of quality, combined with the enormously increased supply now thrown on the market, has tended very seriously to reduce the commercial value of Ceylon bark, the price of which has fallen so low, that except in certain specially favourable localities it does not pay to collect the crop. And yet some country chemists still sell quinine at a very small reduction on the old exorbitant price. It is said that quinine manufacturers combined against the producers and the consuming public in order to keep up the price, but whatever is the reason, the planters find it impossible to obtain a remunerative price for bark, though thousands of fever-stricken people and of Chinamen struggling to shake off the bondage of opium crave quinine as their one hope of salvation.[205]

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Footnote 205:

Mr. J. Ferguson, of the _Ceylon Observer_, writes to the Secretary of
the Society for the Suppression of the Opium Trade showing how much
opium-eating (laudanum and morphia, or pure opium) may be counteracted
by a liberal use of quinine. It is known to be practised to a very
serious extent in the Fen districts of Cambridge and Lincolnshire,
about Gravesend on the Thames, and in other malarial districts, as
well as by underfed men and women in unhealthy houses in great cities.

He quotes Mr. Archibald Colquhoun, in his ‘Journey Across Chrysê,’ to
show how many Chinamen, victims to this curse, realise the efficacy of
quinine in superseding the need of opium and possibly curing the
craving for it; and how both mandarins and people craved for a pinch,
as the best gift he could bestow on them. He shows how beneficial this
tonic would also be to horses and cattle in malarial regions, if only
it could reach the consumer at anything approaching the modest price
which would pay the cultivator.

-----

When young trees have been recently stripped or shaved, a careful planter supplies them with an artificial garment of dried grass or old newspaper! That any plant should tolerate such a substitute for lungs seems incredible; nevertheless these seem to flourish under this treatment, even when repeated in successive years. Certainly the cinchona is a most forgiving shrub.

Besides these, which are of course the leading industries, many smaller cultivations are being tried experimentally, such as india-rubber, cardamoms, croton-oil seed, aloes, on account of their fibre, &c.

It is no life of idleness which awaits a young planter. Early and late he must be at his post, in foul weather and in fine; sometimes for weeks together living in a continual state of soak, with rain pouring as it can only do in the tropics, finding out all the weak places in the roof, and producing such general damp that nothing is dry, and boots and clothes are all covered with fungus. Up and down the steep mountain-side he must follow his coolies, often battling with fierce wind, scrambling over and under great fallen trees and rocks and charred branches, for wherever a little bush can find a crevice, there he must go to see that it has been duly tended. For it is not enough to plant a bush and leave it to take its chance; what with manuring and handling, pruning and picking, there is always something to be done. In the case of coffee, however, the great mass of work comes on periodically in crop-time, when for several consecutive weeks the press and hurry continue, and Sunday and week-day alike know no rest.

Nor will the substitution of tea culture for that of coffee lighten the planter’s work; on the contrary, the former involves more constant care. Coffee crops were only gathered at definite seasons, and work on the plantation, in the store, and in the pulping house was all cut and dry, the rush of work being compressed into two or three months. It was simple work, requiring less special training and care than tea cultivation.

Tea picking goes on all the year round, and the curing requires the greatest care and nicety of manipulation, and constant European supervision. The work involves long hours nearly every day of the whole year, and is a great and continuous strain on both physical and mental powers.

One of the sorest difficulties with which the planter has ceaselessly to contend is the washing away of his precious surface-soil by the annual heavy rains, which carry down hundreds of tons of the best soil, possibly to enrich some one else in the low country, but more probably to be lost in the ocean. This might, in a measure, be obviated by more systematic drainage, but that of course means more coolies and more outlay, and both of these are serious difficulties.

Amongst a planter’s varied anxieties is the care of his coolies when they fall sick, as these natives of the hot dry plains of Southern India are very apt to do, in the cold dreary rainy season of the mountain districts. Occasionally a very serious outbreak of illness occurs, when, perhaps, the nearest doctor is far away, and the young planter is thrown on his own resources. Such was the outbreak of cholera which occurred in July 1891 (a terribly rainy season) at Lebanon in Madulkele.

An epidemic of dysentery ripened into cholera of so virulent a type that in many cases death ensued within six hours. Some coolies who had turned out at muster at 6 A.M. were dead at ten the same morning. There were in all forty _bonâ fide_ seizures, besides a crowd of frightened men and women who were doctored on chance, and twenty-five died in such horrible cramps that their bodies could not be straightened, and the survivors were so terrified that it was difficult to compel them to bury the dead.

Imagine how terrible a charge to be suddenly thrown on a young planter.[206] He proved equal to the emergency, however; physicked, blistered, and rubbed down all the patients with his own hands till an experienced cholera doctor came to his aid from Kandy. Two poor fellows died in his kitchen-verandah. It was somewhat remarkable that of the twenty-five deaths only six were women.

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Footnote 206:

Mr. Thomas Dickson.

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Happily, such a terrible experience as this is rare, but there are continual occasions for care and the exercise of much discrimination to discern between illness and idleness—a quality which does sometimes assert itself even in these energetic and industrious Tamil coolies, who are the backbone of all island labour. In days of old these immigrants from the mainland invaded Ceylon as ruthless conquerors; now they come as valuable helpers in every enterprise.

How important a place they occupy may be gathered from the fact that there are always from 200,000 to 300,000 at work on the plantations (in the time of the Madras famine in 1878 about 400,000 contrived to make a living in Ceylon). When at home in Southern India, their average earnings are between 3_l._ and 4_l._ a year, on which they maintain themselves and their families, always reserving a margin for temple-offerings.

In Ceylon they have regular work and regular pay, earning about four times as much as they do on the mainland, besides receiving certain extras in kind—a roof, a bit of garden in which to grow vegetables, a blanket, and medical attendance in sickness. Their staple food is rice, of which an enormous supply is imported from the mainland. A man’s wages range from 9_d._ to 1_s._ a day; a woman can earn about 7_d._, and a child 3_d._; so they are well off and generally content, their relations with their employers being almost invariably kind. On every estate there is a long row of mud huts, which are ‘the coolie lines,’ and very uninviting quarters they appear to Europeans.

The Singhalese furnish a very small proportion of the estate labourers, and are chiefly employed when extra hands are needed for light work, such as plucking tea-leaf in the season; for, although no one can get through hard toil better and quicker than the Singhalese, they have a fixed belief that all work is derogatory save that which produces food for their own families. So although they work well on their own paddy-field (and send hardy deep-sea fishers to the north of the Isle, while the Tamil fishers stick to the shore), they contrive to earn a general character for indolence, and go about their work in a style which often reminded me of a certain Ross-shire boatman, who was supposed to provide fish for the laird’s table, but therein frequently failed. One day his mistress ventured to compare his ill-filled creel with that of a visitor on an adjoining estate, mentioning how many fish he had brought home. ‘Oh! ’deed, I weel believe it,’ was the reply; ‘_puir man! he’ll just be making a toil of it!_’

The Singhalese are said to be somewhat more conscientious than the Tamil coolies as regards doing well what they undertake. At the same time, if it is work which can possibly be done by women and children, these will certainly be deputed to do it. I think, however, that as regards the employment of deputies, the palm must be awarded to a Malay conductor, who was asked whether he was observing the fast of Ramadan. He replied that he was not, as he was working hard and required his food, but that _he was making his wife keep it_!

Of course, on estates, employers take care that their coolies do work energetically, but as a specimen of really indolent occupation, you should watch a gang of Government coolies working on the roads—those excellent roads which overspread the country in every direction like a network. In spreading metal, one powerful man fills a very small basket, which another strong man lifts on to the head of a woman, who walks a few yards, empties it on to the road, and then returns for another load.

Then when the roads are to be pounded, a gang of able-bodied men stand in a group, while one of them sings a long monotonous ditty rather like a Gaelic song, and at the end of each verse of four lines all simultaneously raise their pounding blocks and let them drop with a thump on the road. It has been calculated that if they make thirty strokes in an hour, they are above the average!

As I have said, these poor coolies are utterly miserable in rainy weather, although the planters do their best to clothe them. I never guessed till I saw these gangs what becomes of old regimental great-coats. But when the sun shines and their scanty drapery has been recently washed, and large, bright turbans well put on, they look as cheery as one could wish, and the women especially are most picturesque, with their fine glossy black hair, large dreamy black eyes, and numerous ornaments on ears, neck, arms, and ankles—some indeed only of painted earthenware, and the majority of bell-metal, but others of real silver, massive but of coarse workmanship. Their gay drapery is worn in most artistic folds.

Many of their merry little brown children wear no clothes whatever, even their heads being shaved and oiled, all save one little tuft of black hair. Shaving, by the way, is generally done with bits of broken bottles! Sometimes you see pretty little girls (Tamil) whose sole decoration is a silver fig-leaf (_Ficus Religiosa_), very suggestive of the legend that here was the Paradise of our first parents! Some poor little girls are weighted with a short, heavy, leaden chain passed through a slit in the ear where European women wear their small earrings. By long weighting in this fashion, the poor ear can be lengthened so as literally to touch the shoulder, and is then loaded with rings—truly hideous in our eyes, and involving much suffering in youth. But pride, they say, feels no pain, so we must hope that this is a case in point. The top of the ear is adorned with a small close fitting stud, like that often worn on one side of the nose.

One of the first things that struck me as strange on reaching the planting districts, is the fact that the names by which estates are known to Europeans convey nothing to the minds of the men who work on them. My first experience of this difficulty was when _en route_ to Mrs. Bosanquet’s pleasant home at Rosita in Dimbula, and my Tamil driver, not having received his instructions before starting, drove stolidly on for fully six miles beyond the turning, totally ignoring my vain expostulating queries, ‘Rosita?’ ‘Bosanquet dorré’ (_i.e._, master). It was quite useless; so there was nothing for it but to drive on till I espied a European bungalow, to which I sent a written message, which happily brought a tall white man stalking down through the coffee to say we _must_ bait the horse and breakfast at his house; where, accordingly, we were most hospitably entertained, and then duly forwarded to our destination.

Considering that all the coolies are Tamils imported from Southern India, one would naturally suppose that they would accept whatever name the owner of an estate has been pleased to give to the piece of forest he has cleared; but so far from this being the case, there is scarcely an estate in the island which is not known to Europeans and their labourers under totally distinct names, so that even in the rare case of a Tamil coolie understanding English, he could not direct you to an estate unless you spoke of it by its Tamil name, and these are sometimes very confusing.

Thus, supposing I wish to visit the estate of Didoola, I must direct my coolies to _Palla Kaduganava_; but supposing I am on my way to Kaduganawa, I must bid them carry me to _Mudaliyarthottam_. I scarcely wonder at finding that places called after homes in Britain retain Singhalese names. Thus Abercairney in Dickoya, and Rosita in Dimbula, are both known as _Sinne Kottagalla_; Feteresso continues to be known as _Anandawatte_, Glen Cairn as _Manickambantotte_, Gorthie as _Hindagalla_, Blair Athol as _Sinne Darrawella_, Braemore as _Kooda Malleapoo_, Fassifern as _Agra Patena_, Waverley as _Bopatelawa_, Craigellachie as _Puthu Road_, Malvern as _Partambasi_, Windsor Forest as _Rajah Totam_, Duffus as _Pusila Tottam_, Forres as _Nugawattie_, &c. But it _is_ strange to find that even genuine Singhalese names are not accepted; as, for instance, Gangaroowa, which to the coolie is known as _Raja Tottam_, while Oolanakanda is _Ulankanthai_, Wewelkellie is _Vevagodde_, Ouvahkellie is _Kagagalla_; while in some cases the coolies know estates only by their name for certain firms or companies, _e.g._, Diyagama is only recognised as Company Totum; Edinburgh and Inverness estates are both Nilghery Totum. As this system of double names applies to about fifteen hundred estates, the new arrival in any district must find the study of his ‘Estates Directory’ an essential part of his education.

In looking over a list of these Highland homes, I am struck by the predominance of Scotch names, as suggestive of the clinging to dear old associations which is always supposed specially to characterise men born in hilly countries. In the low country this inspiration seems to be lacking, for, in a list of about 350 cocoa-nut estates, I only find four Scotch names.

I will not attempt to give details of the pleasant months I spent in the various planting districts, for I fear I must have already tried the patience of my readers. I can only say that in each district I found the same hospitable welcome, and was struck with the cordiality and good-fellowship which forms so marked a characteristic of life among the planters.

Of course a lover of beautiful nature cannot but mourn over the bleak ugliness of range beyond range of mountains all totally denuded of any vegetation whatever except the very monotonous carefully-pruned bushes, growing amid the blackened or sun-bleached stumps of what but a little while ago were noble forest trees, now standing like headstones in some vast cemetery.

Day after day we witnessed marvellous effects of opal light and strange blue mists, telling of great forest-burnings, and, on favourable days, marked on every side the column of dense lurid smoke rising from some glen or valley that was about to be ‘improved.’ At several of these ‘burns’ we were actually present, when tracts of two or three hundred acres were committed to the flames, and for hours we watched the wild conflagration raging—a scene of indescribable grandeur. Sometimes the great burnings so affected the atmosphere as to bring on tremendous rain-storms, and on one occasion, when we had to ford a river, we got across only just in time before the stream came down in flood.

Out of so many thousand acres of beautiful timber ruthlessly destroyed, one tree excited my special regret. It was a majestic banyan-tree, which had occupied the only piece of quite level ground at the Yoxford. That ground was the only suitable spot for the erection of a bungalow, so the grand old tree had been felled, and the ground was strewn with its huge trunk and arms—a sorry sight!

As regards social meetings, men gathered from far and near for church services, especially at Christmas and New Year, as also for occasional cricket-matches, never allowing their energies to be damped by any amount of rain. And sometimes, as a very great event, there was a cheery ball, when the principal coffee-store in the district was swept out and elaborately decorated as a ball-room, and the nearest bungalow was given up to the ladies to dress and sleep in, as they had probably ridden over hill, valley, and torrent for many miles to attend the unwonted festivity.

At the time of my visit to Dimbula, there were actually thirty-five ladies in the district—a true sign of prosperity—and a ball was not a matter of indifference to either sex; indeed, the hearty honest enjoyment of existence among the planters, and the zest with which they enter into whatever business or pleasure is the order of the day, is one of the pleasantest features of life in the mountain districts.