IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY
When good Kandyans discourse in flowery vein, they say Kandy is only
forty miles from heaven. Visitors who have fallen under the charm of the
place are more likely to wonder at their moderation than question their
ability to measure celestial distances. If Gautama Buddha's "eternal
rest" were to be had on earth, Kandy would surely be the reward of
Nirvana promised those who have acquired merit.
The beauty of Kandy is based upon naturalness; it is not grand like
Taormina in Sicily, nor produced by nature and art in combination like
Monte Carlo. Everything connected with the spot is fascinating, even the
jungle that by day harbors the jackals which sometimes make night
hideous to sojourners. Everybody appears happy; even elephants hauling
timber in the suburbs toil cheerfully.
This inland province that formed the kingdom of Kandy preserved its
integrity throughout the Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the island;
and the English were in possession of the coast section full nineteen
years before the Kandyan monarchy succumbed to their power.
This beautiful city was a different place under the native kings. They
loved grandeur, apparently, but it was the grandeur of selfish
surroundings and luxury. The lake now the center of the city was
constructed by the last king, it is true; but its shore witnessed
atrocities never surpassed in savage excess. Near the spot where stands
a monastery of yellow robed monks of Buddha, the last king assembled his
people in 1814 to witness the punishment of the innocent wife and
children of a fleeing official accused of treason. By the blow of a
sword the head of each child was severed from its body in the mother's
presence, even that of the babe wrenched from her breast. The heads were
placed in a mortar, and the woman forced under threat of disgraceful
torture to pound them with a huge pestle.
When news of this reached the coast the English determined to intervene
in the interests of humanity. While the horror was yet fresh in the
public mind, a party of native merchants of Colombo came to Kandy to
trade. The fiendish king ordered them seized and horribly mutilated.
When, a few weeks later, the survivors returned to the sea-coast
deprived of ears, noses and hands--with the severed members tied to
their necks--the English decided to act immediately. Three months later
Kandy was in their possession, and the king an exile in southern India.
From that time, with the exception of a few years when the hereditary
Kandyan chiefs were troublesome through finding their privileges
circumscribed, the progress of Ceylon as a whole has been remarkable.
Perhaps the finest example of benefits coming with England's colonial
rule is this "Eden of the Eastern Wave." Slavery and forced labor on
public works have been abolished, fine roads constructed everywhere, and
adequate educational facilities placed within easy reach.
A visitor perceives no squalor, few beggars, and apparently no genuine
poverty. All these advantages have been secured practically without
taxing the natives in any manner. Uniform contentment, consequently, is
everywhere visible. The naked babies, looking like india-rubber dolls,
have apparently never learned to cry.
Oddly enough, the English made Kandy the Saint Helena of Arabi Pasha's
exile, until the broken and aged man was permitted a few years since to
return to his beloved Egypt.
[Illustration: TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY]
Itself beautiful with poinsettia, bougainvillea, crotons, hibiscus and
palms, a botanical garden in Kandy would seem to have no proper place.
But the city possesses one that is almost unique among tropical gardens.
It is in the suburb of Peradeniya, four miles out, and it is embraced on
three sides by Ceylon's principal stream, the Mahavaliganga. For eighty
years the Ceylon government has treated the Peradeniya garden and its
associated experimental stations as an investment--and it has paid well,
for through its agency the cultivation of cinchona, cacao, rubber and
other economic crops has been introduced to the people. Throughout
Asia the Peradeniya garden is famous. Whether the claim that it is the
finest in the world be correct would require an expert to determine. The
botanical garden at Demerara may be as good, if not larger and better.
A layman visiting Peradeniya returns to Kandy in a state of
bewilderment. He has seen so many attractive and strange manifestations
of nature that lucid description is beyond his power. He is aware,
nevertheless, that he has viewed nearly every tree, shrub, plant and
vine known to tropical and subtropical climes; shrubs that produce every
spice, perfume and flavoring he ever heard of, or that contribute to
medicine, as well.
At Peradeniya the palm family has nearly a hundred representatives,
including the areca, palmyra, talipot, royal, fan, traveler's, date and
cocoanut. The forty or more varieties of crotons include the curious
corkscrew of the West Indies, and range extravagantly in colors and
markings. Huge Assam rubber-trees have exposed roots suggesting a tangle
of octopi. A tree noticeable for its perfect foliage is the breadfruit;
and there are sensitive plants that shrink from intimate attention, and
water-plants whose roots need not come into contact with the earth.
Here and there are kola trees, cardamom bushes, aloe plants from which
sisal is drawn, camphor and cinnamon shrubs, and probably every species
of the parasitical family, depending like many human beings upon
stronger relatives or neighbors for support. The orchid enclosure would
arouse any collector's covetousness. There are foliage plants producing
leaves counterfeiting elephant ears, and others that look like full
spread peacock tails. A small leaf which the official guide of the
gardens is obviously partial to is deep green when held to the light,
purple when slightly turned, and deep red if looked at from another
angle. The visitor moves swiftly into the sunlight when told that he is
standing in the shade of the deadly upas.
A traveler approaching the island of Ceylon hears constantly of the
wonders of Peradeniya; and some statements in praise of the garden are
taken usually with reserve, especially that asserting there are trees
there which develop so rapidly that the spectator can actually see them
grow. This seems incredible, but there is ample basis for the statement.
After a rain the fronds of the giant bamboo frequently grow a foot in
the course of a day. At the office of the director of the garden are
records of many measurements proving that fronds have lengthened a half
inch in an hour. A tree growing a half inch in sixty minutes is a Ceylon
fact. The first time I went to Peradeniya, thousands of flying-foxes,
suspended bat-like from the giant bamboos a hundred feet from the earth,
were sleeping away the day, while soaring above the trees were hundreds
of these queer objects, scolding like disturbed crows.
[Illustration: TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS]
Peradeniya's visitors come from every land in the world, some traveling
great distances to see the wonders of the garden. One has not to be
arboriculturist or botanist to appreciate the establishment; it is
always entertaining, sometimes amusing, and appeals variously to the
tastes of visitors. For example, the Mexican goes involuntarily to the
aloe from which his beloved pulque is made, the Egyptian to the
date-palm, the Connecticut man to the nutmeg grove, and the New Yorker
to the tree under which handfuls of cloves may be scooped up without
charge, whereas at home they are acquired one at a time at considerable
expense.
Explore the highways and byways of Kandy keenly as one may, nothing is
in evidence explaining its manifest prosperity--the place has no
distinctive product or business. It is the seat of management, however,
of the island's greatest industry--tea raising.
In Ceylon tea is "king." This being the fact, no visitor to the town
where the Planters' Association has its administrative machinery can
close his ears to tea talk. Elsewhere people talk over their tea-cups;
in Kandy, they talk tea over every other kind of cup. Kandy's big hotel
bristles with planters in overspreading sun hats, as do club and
friendly bungalow verandas. Some are "down" for a day (and a night) from
up-country estates, while others are "up" from smallish properties at
levels below Kandy. Nearly all have to purchase supplies and draw a few
sacks of rupees from the bank with which to pay off their coolies. But
some have come to discuss market conditions and prospects with their
agents. A few, not yet wholly emancipated from the social side of life
in which they were reared, have journeyed to Kandy to rub shoulders for
a few days with civilization.
The orbit of each and every one of these transplanted Britons is tea,
and this in its primal form. They can have no concern with Steel common.
Amalgamated copper or Erie 4's, and to them the jargon of stock
exchanges would be as meaningless as Sanskrit platitudes. Their
speculative medium is tea--tea in bulk, and pretty large bulk at that.
The daily cable from London summarizing the tea market interests each of
these men as vitally as the tale of the ticker interests the American
taking a flier in stocks. The story is told in two or three lines, and
by a presentation of numerals appearing exceedingly unimportant to the
sojourner whose operations in tea never exceeded the purchase of a pound
package.
[Illustration: TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA]
Yes, the figures tell the story--a tale of occasional success, but often
of failure and woe. A bracketed set of fractions explains the range of
prices for broken pekoes, another set deals with common pekoes, another
with orange pekoes, and still another with common souchongs. Then follow
such words as "steady," "generally firm," and "somewhat lower"--each a
phrase with potential significance. The crux of the communication, like
that of a school-girl's letter, comes last. If it reads "general market
closed 1-8th penny up," the planter has visions of happiness and
affluence, and forthwith orders a "peg." But if the postscript says
"1-8th down," the young planter foresees nothing but disaster, and may
consider levanting with the bags of rupees by the next steamer from
Colombo. A planter is always a bull on prices, while the important buyer
in Europe is chronically bearish.
The yearly tea product of Ceylon is aggregating 155,000,000 pounds, and
of this Uncle Sam purchases 12,000,000 pounds, while 98,000,000 go to
Great Britain. The value of the annual output varies little from
$21,000,000--and from this Ceylon supports itself so comfortably that
the tea-plant seems to merit adoption as the emblem of the colony.
The rise of the industry affords one of the most remarkable instances of
rapid development of an agricultural pursuit. Coffee used to be the
dominating crop in the island, until "coffee blight" ruined the
industry. Tea was then experimented with. In 1875 barely a thousand
acres were under tea; now the acreage is 385,000. A journey from Kandy
to Nuwara Eliya, in the mountains, is through an interminable
tea-garden, and on every hand is proof of substantial investment of
capital. The choicest crops are raised between five and six thousand
feet above sea-level, and lands in this zone are worth as much as $500
an acre. The scientific cultivation of tea paid its pioneers handsomely,
but the current opinion is that overproduction is killing prices, and
that a new crop must be sought--probably rubber.
Ceylon's important tea estates are the property of companies, whose
shares are dealt in on the London and Colombo stock exchanges. Small
plantations are owned by individuals, usually the persons conducting
them. One or two thousand Europeans, mainly Englishmen and Scotchmen,
are employed on the important estates as managers, assistants and
accountants. Hosts of young Britons work a year or two without
compensation for the experience. They are called "creepers," and some of
them eventually obtain salaried offices, or embark in the industry on
their own account. The laboring force on an estate is provided chiefly
by Tamil coolies from southern India, and numbers from one to two
thousand. Both men and women contrive to lay by a competence at a wage
rate of from eight to fifteen cents a day.
If let alone, the tea-plant would grow to be a tree eighteen or twenty
feet high, but by generous top pruning it is kept down to three feet,
thus becoming a squat bush possessing a biggish leafing area. Every
eight or twelve days the shoots and young leaves are plucked--when
treated these become the tea of commerce. Tea-plants are alike, speaking
generally, grades being effected by the discrimination of picker and
sorter. Fresh buds and tender young leaves make the pekoes, older ones
the souchongs. Tea gathered exclusively from buds and tips is called
"flowery;" if the first young leaf be included, it is "orange pekoe."
In order of quality the Ceylon grades are: orange pekoe, pekoe,
pekoe-souchong, souchong, congou, and dust.
[Illustration: A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN]
Tea-plants are perennial, and are set about four feet apart on
hillsides. At three years of age they become productive. Familiar sights
in the hills are the coolies with baskets of slips setting out plants
wherever unemployed spaces may be found, and groups of Tamil girls
plucking buds and young leaves from mature bushes. These girls are happy
countenanced, some slender and graceful in carriage and movement, and
none express objection to being snapshotted by travelers. The girls'
baskets are emptied and contents systematically sorted at convenient
places in the field, or at the factory. Essential to every important
estate is the factory, for there the leaves are withered, broken by
rolling, fermented, fired, and finally sifted into grades preparatory to
packing in lead-lined boxes ready to be despatched to the markets of the
universe.
It is reassuring to witness the system and scrupulous cleanliness of
every step employed in producing Ceylon tea. Anybody who has spent a day
on an up-country estate is fairly certain to be friendly to Ceylon tea
the rest of his life, for modern machinery does much of the work which
in China and Japan is performed by hands none too clean and amid
surroundings none too healthful.