AROUND KANDY.--BOTANICAL GARDENS AND COFFEE PLANTATIONS.--ADVENTURES
WITH SNAKES.
Doctor Bronson had a letter of introduction to Mr. Walker, a merchant of
Kandy, and delivered it on the morning after their arrival. He was
cordially welcomed by that gentleman, and invited to visit the botanical
gardens as a preliminary to breakfast, and also to take the two youths
on the excursion. The botanical gardens are some two miles or more from
the town, and there is a good road thither which forms a pleasant drive.
On the way to the gardens Mr. Walker told the strangers something about
the place they were about to visit. He said the Botanic Garden of Ceylon
was first established near Colombo, in 1799, but the locality proved
unsuitable, and it was moved to two or three places in succession, and
finally came to Kandy about sixty years ago. It had been carefully kept,
and the expenditures for it had resulted in the creation of one of the
finest open-air gardens in the world.
[Illustration: YOUNG PALMS IN THE BOTANIC GARDEN.]
While he was giving them some of the details concerning it they arrived
at the entrance, and passed within the gates. Magnificent collections of
palms of different kinds, bamboos with trunks a foot in diameter, and
growing in great clusters, as though a dozen of them came from a single
root, green and flowering plants almost without number, nutmeg and
cinnamon trees, tea and coffee plants, and hundreds of other botanical
curiosities were passed in rapid succession. Mr. Walker called attention
to the palms for which Ceylon is celebrated, and described their
peculiarities. "You doubtless know all about the cocoa-nut palm," said
he, "as you have just come from the sea-coast where it flourishes, but
the Palmyra palm may be new to you. It is to the north of Ceylon what
the cocoa-nut palm is to the south, as it furnishes food, clothing, and
shelter to the inhabitants."
One of the boys asked if it bore the same kind of fruit as the trees of
the sea-coast.
"There is a resemblance between the products of the two trees," was the
reply, "but they are not the same. The Palmyra grows to seventy or
eighty feet high, and the stem is nearly always straight, and ends in a
tuft of fan-shaped leaves, with clusters of fruit as large as a
cocoa-nut, but rounder. There are six or seven of these clusters, with
ten to twenty fruit in a cluster, and each fruit contains three seeds or
kernels filled with a white pulp that is eaten fresh, or can be dried
and kept for any length of time. If the kernels are planted, they throw
off sprouts the size of parsnips; these sprouts can be eaten fresh, or
dried in the sun, and the natives make various dishes from them, and
also an excellent farina which forms the food of a great many people.
"The timber is very valuable, as it is one of the few woods the white
ants will not eat, and it is used for a great many purposes; the leaves
are fashioned into many useful things, and the chief use of the tree is
for producing the coarse sugar that is made from its juice, in the same
manner as from the cocoa-nut palm. It is a curious circumstance that
the two trees will not flourish in the same region, and that both are
nearly equally valuable to mankind. In the neighborhood of Jaffna, in
the north of the island, there are more than six millions of these
Palmyra-trees, and they support a great number of people."
[Illustration: INDIA-RUBBER-TREE.]
Many of the palm-trees in the gardens were covered with vines and
creeping plants; one of them, known as the beetle-vine, was full of
bright blossoms that made a sharp contrast to the dark-green foliage.
There were several specimens of the India-rubber-tree, and Frank
remarked that one of them reminded him of an American elm, with its
wide-spreading branches, and its apparent fondness for the house near
which it stood.
They had a pleasant stroll through the gardens, which cover an area of
about one hundred and forty acres, and are beautifully laid out from one
end to the other. A little river flows through the centre of the
gardens, and in several places it has been widened into pools filled
with aquatic plants. Altogether, the excursion of the morning was
crowded with interest and instruction, and the boys returned to Kandy
full of delight with what they had seen and heard.
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF A COFFEE-PLANTER.]
After breakfast the party remained in-doors for several hours, partly on
account of the mid-day heat, and partly in consequence of a shower of
rain that came without warning. In the afternoon they went to see a
coffee plantation belonging to the brother of their entertainer, and to
learn something of the coffee culture of Ceylon. Here is the result of
their observations:
"Kandy is the centre of the coffee culture of Ceylon; coffee grows at an
elevation of 1800 feet and more, and the centre of the island has been
found well adapted to it. There are now about 1200 plantations--they
call them estates here--of an average extent of 250 acres each. Coffee
land is very dear: a good plantation, with the trees bearing, everything
in proper condition, and well situated, is worth $500 an acre. Wild and
uncleared land is worth $65 an acre, and the man who takes it must be at
the expense of clearing and planting, and can expect no returns under
six years. Much money has been made in the business, just as it has been
made in America by raising sugar and cotton; and, on the other hand,
much money has been lost. There are many men in Ceylon who are poorer
to-day than they were ten years ago, in consequence of their losses in
the coffee business, and if any young man in America has an ambition to
come here to make a fortune by cultivating coffee, he had better stay at
home.
[Illustration: VIEW ON A COFFEE ESTATE.]
"Most of the coffee-planters are young Englishmen, with money or moneyed
friends, who come or are sent to Ceylon to make their fortunes. The
balance are generally the representatives of wealthy firms or
individuals in Colombo, and owe their positions to personal influence or
the advancement of a few thousands by way of security. An insight into
the business may be obtained by glancing at the advertising columns of
the Ceylon _Observer_, a newspaper published at Colombo. One firm
advertises that it will make advances on crops not yet gathered, and
another offers to make contracts for consignments. A man with money to
lend desires a situation as manager of a coffee estate, and another who
can control consignments wishes a similar place. We are told that nearly
every house in Colombo is interested, one way and another, in the coffee
estates, generally through advances made on the growing crops.
"The system is much like that which prevailed in the Southern United
States before the war, when the cotton-planter on the Mississippi River
received advances from his factor in New Orleans, so that when his crop
was gathered nearly all the proceeds were required to pay the debts that
had been accumulated during the year.
"The factor in Colombo furnishes the provisions necessary for the
estate, and charges a good commission for his trouble. He supplies the
tools and machinery for the use of the planter, and provides money for
employing the laborers engaged in the cultivation. By the time the crop
comes in a large debt has been created, and if the yield is good and the
market is up, nobody has any occasion to complain. But of late years the
prices have been so low that nobody has made anything, and many
plantations have been kept up at a loss.
[Illustration: PLANTATION LABORERS.]
"Coffee culture in Ceylon and Java are pretty much alike, as the plant
is the same, and the machinery for collecting the crop and preparing it
for market is managed on a similar principle. The plant is raised from
the seed, and begins to bear when it is six years old, and has attained
the size of a large currant-bush. The berries are like large cherries,
and are gathered by hand; they are run through a machine which separates
the bean from the husk, and allows the former to settle to the bottom of
a tank of water, while the latter are floated away through a trough. The
beans are then dried in the sun, or by a fire if the weather is cloudy,
and when sufficiently cured they are put in sacks and sent to Colombo.
Here they are sorted and again dried, so as to fit them for
transportation to England or America. It is in the condition in which it
left Colombo when the merchants get it in New York."
[Illustration: SHED ON A COFFEE PLANTATION.]
While they were going through the buildings where the coffee-berries
were crushed, and the beans separated from the husks, Fred suddenly
stooped, and then sprung back as though greatly alarmed.
Calling out "Snake! snake!" at the top of his voice, he seized a stick
that was lying on the floor, and proceeded to kill the object of his
fright. As he raised the stick his hand was seized by Mr. Walker; the
latter smiled and said,
"The snake is perfectly harmless, and one of our pets. Don't kill him."
Fred gave an inquiring look at the face of his host to see if he was in
earnest; satisfied that he was, he lowered his arm and took a second
look at the snake, who did not seem at all frightened at the presence of
strangers.
The reptile was about five feet long, and of an olive-brown color. Mr.
Walker said the scientific name for this snake is _Pytas muscosus_, and
there was a snake in India that closely resembled him, and frequently
grew to seven feet in length. "We keep them about our houses and other
buildings," said he, "as you keep cats in America, and for the same
purpose--to kill the rats. They are entirely harmless to us, but a
deadly foe to rats; they go around the roofs and ceilings at night, and
you will frequently hear a lively struggle going on between a rat and a
snake. As the ceilings are often nothing but mats spread over poles, the
combatants sometimes fall through, and when this happens in the presence
of a person newly arrived in the country it is apt to disturb his
nerves."
To show the powers of the snake the gentleman said something to one of
the attendants, who immediately went out, and soon returned with a wire
trap containing a live rat. The snake was instantly all excitement, and
showed the impatience of a terrier to get at his prey. The trap was
opened, and the rat released in the middle of the floor; the snake
darted upon him with the rapidity of a flash, and in an instant snake
and rat were struggling and rolling over each other in deadly conflict.
In less than a minute the fight was over, and the snake was the victor.
"The rats are a great annoyance to the coffee-planter," said the
gentleman, "and we gladly welcome any means of getting rid of them. We
have several varieties, but the worst is the one we call the coffee-rat;
he is about four inches long, with stiff, reddish-brown hair, and he
makes his nest in the buildings or under the roots of trees. These rats
climb the coffee-trees and eat the buds and blossoms, and they enter the
houses and eat the berries while they are being cured. They go from one
place to another in great swarms, and some plantations have been
actually destroyed by them; a thousand have been killed on an estate in
twenty-four hours, and sometimes they are so numerous that we offer
rewards for killing them. But we never let a reward cover a period of
more than a month or two; once it was given for a whole year, and we
found that the natives had developed a new industry, and were raising
rats in great numbers for the sake of the reward.
"The snakes, the cats, and the Malabar coolies are our best friends in
getting rid of the rats; the snakes and the cats kill them for the love
of doing so, and the coolies do it for the sake of food. They fry the
rats in oil, and pronounce them a great delicacy; and when they have
more rats than they can dispose of fresh, they dry them by smoking over
a fire, the same as you dry bacon in America."
[Illustration: PLEASURES OF A MORNING WALK.]
The conversation naturally turned upon snakes, and the boys were not
quite pleased to learn that Kandy was infested with venomous reptiles,
and they were not unlikely to encounter one at any moment. Frank thought
he should be careful about his morning walks in future, and Fred
endorsed his cousin's opinion. Their host told them that the largest
snake of Ceylon was the boa or rock-snake, and that happily he was
perfectly harmless, like his friend whose performance they had just
witnessed. Altogether, there are about fifty varieties of snakes in
Ceylon, nearly all of them being harmless to man; eight varieties live
in trees, two belong to fresh water, and there are seven or eight
sea-snakes. The most dangerous snakes are four in number--the cobra, the
tic-polonga, the carawalla, and the green carawalla.
"The cobra," said he, "is the worst and most dangerous of all, and
unfortunately he is sociable in his nature, and likes to come around
houses; if one is killed near a house, his companion is sure to be seen
in an hour or so looking for him. These snakes generally try to get out
of the way, and do not bite unless trodden on or irritated; they like to
wander around at night, and most of the accidents with them occur from
their nocturnal habits.
"They have a puff of skin on each side of the neck which they inflate
when enraged, and thus add to their naturally horrid appearance. From
this circumstance they were named by the Portuguese the
_cobra-di-capello_--cobra with a hood--on account of the general
resemblance of the puff of skin to a hood. Many have a pair of
spectacles on the back of the hood, and their general color is black.
Jugglers tame them, and play with them without apparent fear, and there
are indications that the snakes have some attachment for their masters,
and learn to obey them.
"The tic-polonga, as he is called in the native language, is from four
to five feet long, and has a thicker body than the cobra, but no hood.
He is of a dark gray color, and rather difficult to rouse into anger;
luckily, his movements are slow, and it is easy enough to get out of his
way, if you know where he is. The snake-charmers are more afraid of him
than of the cobra, as he is not as easy to manage, and his poison acts
more promptly on the system. Birds and rats die instantly when bitten by
these serpents, and their bites are nearly always fatal to men if the
poison is fairly introduced into a wound."
Doctor Bronson asked their host if he had ever seen these serpents
attacked by hawks or eagles; the answer was in the negative, and then
the Doctor told how he once witnessed a fight between an American hawk
and a mocasson snake or adder. The bird seized the snake, and rose with
him in the air; he was probably a hundred feet from the ground, when
suddenly the hawk threw back his head and fell as though he had been
shot.
[Illustration: FIGHT BETWEEN A HAWK AND A SNAKE.]
The Doctor ran to the spot, and found that the snake had bitten the hawk
in the throat, and killed him with his poison. But the grip of the bird
was firm, and the snake was fixed in the sharp claws, so that he could
not get away, and speedily died from the wound.
"We have a snake in Ceylon," the host remarked, "that lives entirely on
other snakes, especially cobras. He is entirely harmless to man, and you
may be sure we treat him kindly, and encourage his presence around our
premises. He is called 'raja-samp' by the natives, and his scientific
name is _Bungarus fasciatus_. There is also a large hooded snake in
India, but rarely seen in Ceylon, that is a great devourer of snakes,
and he will swallow his own brother as readily as any other serpent."
[Illustration: FIGHT BETWEEN A BLACK SNAKE AND A RATTLESNAKE.]
"We have no snakes in America," replied the Doctor, "that live on their
kindred, but there are several of our reptiles that show a great hatred
for each other. For example, the rattlesnake and the common black snake
of the Eastern States are far from friendly, and when they meet there is
pretty sure to be a battle. The rattlesnake coils itself for a spring,
while the black snake moves rapidly from side to side to distract the
attention of its antagonist, and to bewilder him. Finally, the rattler
settles down with his head in the air and his mouth open, and then the
other moves rapidly in a circular direction, and prepares to close the
preliminaries by coming to the work.
"The rattler is bewildered in attempting to follow the movements of the
black snake; the latter sees his chance and darts at the throat of his
adversary, and at the same time encircles him in his folds. The black
snake is a constrictor, which the other is not, and as soon as the grip
is made his powers of constriction are exercised. He winds about the
rattlesnake, and every moment draws his folds more tightly. The latter
has no chance to use his fangs, and the combat in nineteen cases out of
twenty results in favor of the black snake. Evidently he fights from
pure love of combat, for he does not attempt to eat his fallen foe."
On their return to Kandy our friends went to see the great curiosity for
which the place is celebrated--a tooth of the founder of the Buddhist
religion.
This wonderful relic is kept in a temple dedicated to Buddha, and
guarded by priests of the religion of the Far East. Near the centre of
the temple there is a room about twelve feet square, with no windows,
and only a single narrow door; the atmosphere is hot and damp in
consequence of the lack of ventilation, and the mass of jasmine, lotos,
and other flowers that are brought there daily as offerings to the deity
of the temple. Whenever visitors come to the temple the priests
assemble, and consequently the room becomes crowded to an unpleasant
degree. This was the state of things when our friends entered.
One of the priests who spoke English acted as guide, and sent a
companion to bring the key of the shrine that contained the relic. This
shrine was of the shape of a bell, and stood on a solid silver table in
the centre of the apartment; inside of the shrine was a smaller one of
the same shape, and then another and another, and finally, in the last
and smallest, the tooth was displayed resting on a golden lotos flower.
Great reverence was shown to the relic by the priests that were standing
around, and all seemed glad of the coming of visitors, as it gave them
an opportunity to see the object they prized so highly.
[Illustration: THE LOTOS FLOWER.]
The boys thought Buddha must have been a man of more than gigantic size
if the relic really belonged to him, as it is nearly two inches long,
and resembles the tooth of a crocodile much more than that of a man. No
one is permitted to touch it; but for several years after the capture of
Kandy by the British the tooth was in their possession, and during that
time it was carefully examined. It was pronounced nothing but a piece of
ivory which had become yellow with age, and possibly from lying so long
on the golden lotos. The latter is a very pretty work of art, and an
excellent representation of the lotos flower as it appears on the walls
of Egyptian and Indian temples.
This tooth has a curious history. According to the Buddhist chronicles,
it was secured at the funeral of Buddha and carried to a temple in
India, where it was kept 800 years. Then there was a war for its
possession, and the king who held it sent his daughter with it to
Ceylon: she concealed it in the tresses of her hair, and was wrecked on
the coast of India, where the tooth was buried for several days in the
sand. Then a new ship was obtained, the tooth was dug up, and the
journey to Ceylon completed.
The relic was kept in Ceylon a couple of hundred years, and then it went
back to India, only to return again in a century or so to Ceylon. It has
been moved about repeatedly--has been to China and Burmah, and there is
a Portuguese account that it was destroyed by them, the viceroy himself
pounding it in a mortar, burning the powdered bone in a brazier, and
then throwing the ashes into the river. The account of its destruction
is given in detail by several historians, but the priests of Kandy say
it is entirely false, and the tooth was never in the possession of the
Portuguese. It is pretty certain they destroyed something which they
supposed to be the tooth, as it is a matter of history that the King of
Pegu, on learning that the Portuguese were in possession of the relic,
sent an embassy to negotiate for it, and offered a sum equal to a
quarter of a million dollars for it, which was refused.
There was another relic of Buddha formerly exhibited in Ceylon--the bowl
that he carried for the collection of offerings. All begging saints
carry a bowl for the receipt of alms, generally a cocoa-nut shell. The
one in question had wonderful properties; a poor man could fill it with
a few flowers, but a rich man could not do so with 100, 1000, or even
10,000 bushels of rice! An army could drink from it without exhausting
it, or even reducing the quantity of liquid it contained. The
Mohammedans say that this bowl belonged to Adam, the father of mankind,
when he lived in Ceylon, and descended from him to Buddha. It passed
through many countries, having visited India, Persia, several provinces
of India, and also China and Thibet. The trace of it has been lost for
several centuries.
As they left the temple, after paying the priest for showing them the
sacred relic, one of the boys asked if Buddhism was the only religion in
Ceylon.
"Not by any means," answered the Doctor. "According to history, Buddha
had a great deal of trouble in converting the Cingalese, as they were
very ardent idolaters, and addicted to the worship of trees and
serpents. Portions of the ancient faith still continue in the universal
dread that the Cingalese have of killing a cobra; they will not destroy
it with a blow from a stick or stone, but they put it in a bag and throw
it in a river, so that it can have a chance of escape. Until very
recently there was a temple at Jaffna dedicated to the snake goddess,
and maintained by some of the descendants of the idolatrous priesthood.
"The Cingalese," the Doctor continued, "have great faith in demons, and
every village has its demon-priest who lives upon the fears of the
people. Everything that goes wrong is ascribed to the demons; and if a
man falls sick or is injured, the priest is called to drive away the
evil spirit that has caused the trouble.
"The most numerous demons are the yakkoes, who are supposed to live in
old trees, and for this reason the natives will not have any old trees
near their dwellings. They also set aside the fruit of certain trees in
their gardens for the use of the demons, and sometimes a portion of the
rice crop in a field is left ungathered for the same purpose. There is a
general belief in sorcery and witchcraft, especially in the north of the
island: the most of the native doctors are sorcerers, and when they
cannot perform a cure with medicines they resort to incantations."