SCENERY AT NEWERA-ELLIA.—ASCENT OF ADAM'S PEAK.
A TROPICAL FERN.
Here is the letter referred to in the last chapter:
"We have had a delightful experience since we left Kandy, and should have been very sorry to miss the journey to Newera-Ellia. The road winds in a zigzag among the hills, and sometimes we could look down hundreds of feet upon the torrents that foamed along through the valleys. For several miles the route follows the Mahavilla-Ganga, which is the largest river in Ceylon, and goes into the sea near Trincomalee; wherever the road crosses the river it does so on a substantial bridge, and at one place there is a suspension-bridge so high up that it made us dizzy to look over the side.
"They tell us that twenty years ago the country was prettier than it now is, because the hills were then covered with dense forests of tropical trees and ferns, which have been cleared off to make room for coffee plantations. There is one charming valley called Kotmalee, which has a range of mountains on the south-east side, some of them several thousand feet high, and the Mahavilla-Ganga winds through it, sometimes presenting a smooth surface, and again broken into foam by the rapidity of its current over the rocks. At the end of the valley the mountains rise quite sharply, and we had a hard climb of fifteen miles to get from there to Newera-Ellia. The road ascends one foot in every fourteen, and you can readily understand that the horses had no easy work to drag the wagon up this steep incline.
"Here we are, 112 miles from Colombo, and 6240 feet above the level of the sea. We are on an undulating plain three miles long by one wide, and the ground is covered with rich grasses and with lots of flowers in blossom; the mountains rise around us, but there are not a great many of them, as we are nearly up to the height of most of the mountains of Ceylon.
"Newera-Ellia is a sort of Saratoga for the inhabitants of Ceylon, or rather for the foreign portion of them. People come up here as often as they can to escape the heat of the coast, and even the inhabitants of Kandy do not despise the place. The change is something like magic; in Colombo the heat and dampness are oppressive, but up here you need a fire and blankets to keep comfortable, and in the winter the ground in the morning is white with frost. Roses and other flowers of the temperate zone grow here, and the blackbird and robin have been imported, and get along finely. Even a day or two of this atmosphere has a wonderful effect upon the visitor from Colombo, and some who cannot afford a longer time run up here on Saturday, return Monday, and find themselves vastly benefited.
"We are so high up that the air is rarefied, but we have no difficulty in breathing. Many of the invalids, however, find it hard work to get their breath, and some have been compelled to go away very soon after their arrival, on account of the injury to their lungs. There is quite a town here, with church, hotel, reading-room, and other public resorts, and in some seasons of the year the place is crowded so that a stranger cannot get in. The temperature is about 53° in the morning, 70° to 75° at noon, and 60° at sunset, and it gets very cold in the night, with frost on the ground from December to March. All the English vegetables and flowers grow here, and so do strawberries and other bush fruits, but peaches will not ripen, and the cherry-trees turn to evergreens, and will not even blossom.
WAITING FOR THE RACES.
"The Government has built a sanitarium for the officers and soldiers of the troops serving in Ceylon, and there is always a detachment stationed here. They have a race-track also, and on frequent occasions they get up some exciting matches. Everybody goes—natives and all—and it must be an interesting sight to see the different races at the races. [N.B.—This joke was intended by Frank, who made it.] The natives are very fond of watching the horses go round the track, and sometimes they follow the example of the English, and make bets on the result.
"They have a band of music, and it plays every other day in front of the regimental barracks; and there is a club where they have balls and receptions: they keep hounds for hunting elk and other large game, and another pack for hunting hares. Altogether they manage to have a good time, and any one who can possibly spare a couple of days to visit Newera-Ellia ought to come here.
"But there are drawbacks to the fun, and it is only fair that we should tell you about them. There are insects of various kinds to trouble you, and the worst of them is the land-leech. He does not live in the water like the ordinary leech, but grows on the trees and bushes, and crawls on the ground; he can drop on you from the trees when you pass beneath them, and he can climb up your body and get inside your clothes. When empty they are not much larger than a needle, but when filled with blood they are as large as a goose-quill, and about two inches long. You can hardly see the young ones, as they are little thicker than hairs; but let them once get fastened to you, and you feel them. So bad are they in some places that they drive people out of houses, and they have attacked persons travelling in carriages by dropping on them from the trees as they passed beneath.
"If your blood is in a bad condition, their bites are apt to cause sores which are difficult to heal. In the last war the English had with the natives, the leeches caused more deaths than the snakes, and a great many of the sepoys and coolies employed here died from their bites. We have been bitten by a few of them, and don't want any more experience of the kind. It is a good plan to carry a lemon in your pocket, and when one of these leeches fastens to you, a few drops of lemon-juice will make him let go. The natives smear their bodies with cocoa-nut oil, which prevents the leeches taking hold, and this is perhaps the reason why so much oil is used in Ceylon.
"They have water-leeches in great number, which frequently cause the deaths of cattle. They enter the nostrils of the poor brutes when the latter go to drink, and after gorging themselves they fall off and leave the wound to bleed. Very often it does so till the blood, accumulating in the throat, suffocates the animal.
"While on this subject, we may as well say that Ceylon is reputed to contain more than 10,000 kinds of insects, besides several parts of the island to hear from. The list of all these varieties might possibly be a little tedious, and so we won't try to give it, but will briefly say they include pretty nearly everything you can think of in the insect line. In the morning, and also in the evening, the hum of the wings of those that can fly is like the noise of machinery in a mill; at noon they are comparatively still, as the heat seems to shut them up. The most of them disappear at the end of the monsoons, but they come up again ready for business in a month or two.
"The white ant, as already mentioned, is one of the most destructive of these pests, since he will eat nearly all kinds of wood, and there are persons who say he is fond of knife-blades, needles, and similar things, and can even get away with a cannon-ball. Closets, where meat and other things for the table are kept, must have the feet stand in saucers filled with water, or they will be over-run by these ants; and in some parts of the island it is the practice to fix the beds in the same way, to prevent the disturbance of the occupants.
SCORPION.
CENTIPEDE.
"There are moths, and beetles, and centipedes, and millipedes, and scorpions, and dragon-flies, and many other things in great number, and there is a little thing they call the tic that is about as large as the head of a pin, and makes trouble enough to be heavier than a cat. He gets on the skin, and buries himself in it, and you must lift him out with the point of a knife if you want to be rid of him, as you generally do. There are bees, and fleas, and caterpillars, and there is a curiosity they call the guinea-worm, which grows under the skin around a person's ankles, and gives him lots of trouble. It is like a fine thread, and grows to be several feet in length; in order to get rid of it, the flesh must be cut into, and every bit of the worm removed, and you can readily understand that the operation is not an agreeable one.
"Well, that's enough about these unpleasant things—we'll come back to other matters.
"There is a dome-shaped mountain on the north-eastern side of the valley which is called Pedrotallagalla, and is the highest in Ceylon, being 8280 feet above the sea, or nearly 800 feet more than Adam's Peak, the most famous mountain of the island. We wanted to go to Adam's Peak, but find we cannot spare the time, and so we must be contented with taking the story of the journey from others.
"Adam's Peak lies between Newera-Ellia and the sea-coast; in fact, it is nearer to Colombo, in an air-line, than Kandy is. To go from here, we should have to cross two or three mountains, and the best way to visit it from Colombo is to go from that place directly to Ratnapoora, on the Kaluganga. Ratnapoora is a nice village at the foot of the mountains, and just as you leave the flat country of the coast; from there the distance to the summit of the peak, as the crow flies, is about eight miles: but it is nearly twenty by the roads and paths.
A VIEW IN THE FOOT-HILLS.
"We will give the story of the ascent of the peak in the words of the gentleman who told it to us, as near as we can remember them. Here goes:
"'We left Ratnapoora early in the morning on horseback, and rode through the jungle to Gillemalle, which is a village of a few huts on a little plain among the thick forests. From here the road winds through hills and valleys in a jungle so dense that for more than half the way all the light of the sun is excluded. You can hardly imagine a more up-and-down road than this, and it is very pretty, as there are many tiny brooks and larger streams dashing among the rocks, and every turn in the way gives you a fresh surprise. But the land-leeches spoil a good deal of your pleasure, as it is impossible to keep them off, and once in a while you have to stop and remove such as have got beneath your clothes.
NATIVES OF THE FOREST.
"'You have good reason to know the forest is not desolate, as you frequently see the tracks of wild elephants, pigs, leopards, and other game animals, and it is not impossible that you may encounter some of these denizens of the wood. But if you let them alone they are not likely to disturb you—and, as they can hear you coming long before you have a chance of seeing them, they are pretty certain to keep out of your way.
"'The road rises quite rapidly as you go from Gillemalle, and every little while you have fine views from the openings in the forest on the crests or sides of the foot-hills. The plains stretch away below you, and the hills seem like great mounds of tropical verdure, as they are covered quite to their summits with trees and smaller vegetation. In some places the road winds around cliffs so steep that you can roll stones over their sides, and hear them rattling and crashing for several minutes in the deep valleys below.
"'The last inhabited spot on the road is Palabaddula, and here you must leave your horses and proceed on foot, as the path is quite impassable for saddle animals. You cross a ravine on a narrow foot-bridge, and then you go on through a thick forest till you come to a level platform or bit of table-land called Deabetine. A traveller who came here five hundred years ago says, "There was at Deabetine the mark of Adam's foot, a statue with the left hand on the knee, and the right hand raised toward the west, and, lastly, the house that Adam made with his own hands." The mark of the foot and the statue are still there, but the house has gone.
"'After leaving Deabetine, the road goes to a large torrent, where it is the habit of pilgrims to bathe, in order to purify themselves for the visit to the sacred temple on the summit. A little way beyond the stream you come to four flights of steps cut in the solid rock; nobody can tell their age, but they were there eight hundred years ago, and were then so ancient that their origin was unknown. The way is so steep that the ascent would be very difficult without these steps.
"'Then you pass another ravine, and then you come to a great rock about fifty feet high that forms the summit. Here you climb by hanging on to some iron chains fixed in the solid rock, and I don't see how anybody ever got up there without them; they have been there a thousand years or so, and are mentioned by Marco Polo and other ancient writers. Some are newer than others, and are probably the gifts of rich pilgrims to replace those that were worn or rusted out.
TEMPLE ON ADAM'S PEAK.
"'When you stand all panting and exhausted on the summit, you find yourself on a little terrace surrounded by a low wall, and containing a temple which is held in place by iron chains that go over its roof. The temple itself is on a mass of rock at one side of the terrace, and inside of the temple is the famous sri-pada or footprint.
"'When you examine the footprint you cannot help thinking that Adam, or Buddha, or whoever stepped there, must have been a person of extraordinary size, as the print is about five feet long by two and a half in width. It is apparently a natural indentation in the rock, extended artificially to represent the shape of the human foot. There was formerly a cover of solid gold over the footprint, but it was lost long ago, and the only cover there at present is made of brass.
"'The pilgrimages of three classes of religionists are made to this temple—by Mohammedans and Malabar Christians in honor of Adam, and by Buddhists in honor of the founder of their religion. The three are often mixed together during the month of March, which is the time of the greatest number of visitors; but in spite of this mingling, and the opposite views professed by the pilgrims, there is no quarrelling, and all seem impressed with the solemnity of the place, and the magnificence of the view from the mountain. The panorama is a very fine one; the southern half of Ceylon lies before you like a map, and away in the distance you see the sunlight sparkling on a beach of shining sand, while beyond it the light plays on the waves of the ever-restless sea. The rivers wind through the plain like threads of silver in a rich carpet, and the breezes from the cinnamon groves and the flowers in perennial bloom bring delicious odors to your nostrils. The man who can look from the top of Adam's Peak, when the clouds have vanished and the great picture is spread before him, and not be impressed by the sight, must be made of something little better than the inanimate earth.
"'On the summit is a spring from which the pilgrims drink; occasionally leaves are found floating on the water of this spring, and the natives believe it has a connection with paradise, and that these leaves come from there. There is also a spring near Deabetine; the leaves that are found in it are thought to come from a garden that Adam established not far away, but anybody who tries to find it will never be allowed to return to his friends.
TROPICAL GROWTH NEAR RATNAPOORA.
"'There were two of us who made the ascent, accompanied by four local guides and servants to help us along. When we came back to Ratnapoora our men said we could return to the sea by the way of Caltura, by descending the Kalu River, as the current was swift and the journey would take only a short time. They procured us a boat which consisted of two hollow logs a few feet apart, and connected by a platform; on this platform we had a comfortable place to sit, while a couple of boatmen stood at bow and stern and managed the craft. We had several narrow escapes from being overturned in the rapids; but all went well, and we arrived safely at the great road where we took the coach for Colombo.'"
The letter was finished at a late hour in the evening, and soon after the closing words had been written the boys were snug in bed. The next morning they started for the return journey to Colombo; while descending one of the long hills between Newera-Ellia and the railway-station a part of the harness of their team gave way, and the coach was overturned on the very edge of a ravine where a brook rattled along a couple of hundred feet below. Had they gone two yards farther they would have tumbled down the whole distance and been dashed to pieces, and it is fair to believe the entire trio felt that they had had a very narrow escape. The driver told them that accidents were of rare occurrence, but he admitted that once in a while they had something of the sort. Of late years the road has been considerably improved by the authorities, but it is yet far from being complete.
They reached Colombo on the evening after leaving Newera-Ellia, and returned to their old quarters in the hotel. In the morning, while the Doctor was busy with plans for their departure, the boys read and corrected their letter, and at the suggestion of Frank a postscript was added, giving a brief account of the return journey, and closing with a description of the visitors that were just then calling on them.
A MORNING CALLER.
"Our visitors are very numerous," said the letter, "and their names are crows. They are all through the room, and they stand on the blinds and the window-sills, and watch their chances when we are breakfasting to steal something from our plates. One of them just now came down and took away a cracker from a plate that was on the table where we are writing, and it is not unusual for them to seize the bread you have in your fingers. They are a little shy of strangers, but not much; and as for the waiters in the hotel, they don't mind them at all. They are never harmed by anybody, and consequently it is not surprising that they are so tame.
"There are many insect visitors, but we have grown so accustomed to their presence that we do not mind them until they actually crawl over us. They are worse in the evening than by daylight, as the lamps and candles attract them; they do not wait for an introduction, but make themselves at home as though everything belonged to them."
EVENING VISITORS.