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.
[Illustration:
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.
-----
Footnote 201:
At Colombo, in the same year, the railway telegrams received and
despatched numbered 20,955, and post-office telegrams 50,487.
-----
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.
-----
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.
-----
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.
-----
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]
-----
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.
-----
Footnote 206:
Mr. Thomas Dickson.
-----
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.