SIGHTS IN POINT DE GALLE.—OVERLAND TO COLOMBO.
Our friends went to the Oriental Hotel, the principal hostelry in the city, and thence to the banker's, where it was thought there might possibly be letters waiting for them. Frank remarked that the streets were very quiet for a place of as much importance as Galle, but Fred reminded him that its chief business was to serve as a coaling-station for steamers, and it was not to be expected that the steamers would come up into the streets to get their coal. Frank acknowledged the force of his cousin's argument, and the subject of conversation was changed.
A STREET IN POINT DE GALLE.
The houses were rarely more than two stories high, and they had shaded balconies where the occupants could be partially protected from the heat during the middle of the day. Point de Galle is cooler than some places farther north, for the reason that the wind blows with great force for a large part of the year, and sometimes it is so fierce that it rolls the surf into the harbor, and causes small craft to dance uneasily at their anchorage. The houses are solidly built of stone or stuccoed brick, and many of the floors are of the same material, on account of the greater coolness. Another reason for the use of stone or brick instead of wood is the presence of a white ant that devours the latter substance with great rapidity; teak and one or two other kinds of wood resist him, but all others are his legitimate food. Speaking on this subject, the Doctor told the boys that some years ago a quantity of machinery was sent from America to Ceylon, and the shippers hoped to make a fine profit on their venture. The machinery was partly of wood and partly of iron, and the wood happened to be of a kind that these ants are fond of. In less than three months they had devoured it; the machinery fell to pieces, and was utterly useless, and the whole value of the shipment was lost. "American exporters," said he, "would do well to learn the peculiarities of the countries where their goods are going before they venture on making consignments."
Ceylon contains a varied assortment of ants, and some of them are great nuisances: they swarm over everything, and seem to consider that the house and all it contains belong to them. There is one variety that is a terror to every living thing; it is about an inch long, and has a pair of powerful jaws with which it inflicts a severe wound. It is formidable in consequence of always moving in great numbers, and when it is once started there is hardly anything that will stop it.
AN ARMY OF ANTS ON THE MOVE.
An army of these ants will march through a forest, and make a road a yard or more in width that resembles a well-trodden path. When hungry they spread out over the fields and devour every green thing, and they can kill cattle, horses, and even large snakes that happen in their way. It is said that their favorite way of killing a snake is by first biting his eyes out, and when they have reduced him to a condition of blindness his capture is comparatively easy. They eat every particle of flesh and leave the bones, and if a skeleton that they have operated on can be found before the bones are scattered by the wild beasts, it is in exactly the condition required for a museum. They show great ingenuity in crossing rivers, and their performances have a strong resemblance to reason. When they come to a stream they search for an overhanging tree, and as soon as they have discovered it a lot of ants proceed to the end of the branch that reaches the farthest over the water. Here they form a chain by linking their bodies together, and the one at the end of the chain grasps a branch on the opposite side, and thus completes a suspension-bridge, by which the rest of the army can cross. When all are over the bridge dissolves and brings up the rear. If the overhanging branch does not reach to the other side, they swing the living chain till the ant at the lower end can seize hold of something, and sometimes they give it additional strength by throwing out guy-ropes or braces of strings of ants.
It was proposed to take a ride to Wockwalla, a famous place near Point de Galle. There were several carriages in front of the hotel, and one of them was engaged for the ride, with the understanding that the return would be made through the cinnamon gardens. The ride was through a rich tropical forest, and the boys both agreed that they had seen no forest more luxuriant than this since they left Java. The trees for much of the way overhung the road, and sheltered the travellers from the sun; and at almost every step they caught sight of birds playing among the branches. Small boys ran after them with bunches of jasmine and other flowers for sale, and one of the youths bought a bunch of mace which was just blooming, and showing the brown nutmeg inside. They regretted that they could not carry it home just as it was, and show their friends the great beauty of the nutmeg-tree when it puts forth its flowers.
Wockwalla proved to be a hill from which there was a fine view of rice-fields and tropical forests, and a pretty river winding through them. With an eye to business some one had built a refreshment-stand on the top of the hill, and a notice was posted that all who did not patronize the establishment would be expected to pay for the privilege of sitting on the balcony. As the day was warm, it was promptly decided that lemonades would be in order, and they were speedily prepared. Mangoes and two or three other kinds of fruit were brought, and an hour was passed very pleasantly in the contemplation of the attractions of Wockwalla, which were not altogether confined to the scenery.
ENTRANCE TO THE CINNAMON GARDENS.
The return to Galle was by a different route, which led them by the cinnamon gardens, where a fee was charged for looking at the trees. Some of the natives stripped off a portion of the bark of one of the trees, and allowed the boys to taste and smell it to make sure that it was cinnamon and nothing else. It was not the season of gathering the bark, and consequently they were unable to witness the process of obtaining the spice, which forms an important export to Europe and America.
While they were wandering about the gardens, and looking at the trees, the Doctor told the boys about the plant they were studying.
"You see," said he, "that the trees are from fifteen to thirty feet high, and when you stand half a dozen yards away the strong perfume that rises from them is plainly perceptible. The scientific men call it the Laurus cinnamomum, and it was known to the ancients long before the beginning of the Christian era; it is a native of Ceylon, and it is said that there are not far from 15,000 acres of ground in the island devoted to its culture. The trees are grown from seed, and when they are eight years old they begin to yield the cinnamon of commerce, and they continue to yield it till they have passed a hundred years. An acre of ground well planted with good trees will give not less than 400 pounds of cinnamon in a year, and sometimes as much as 500 pounds.
"The bark is stripped off in pieces about forty inches long, and is then fermented till the outer skin separates from the inner, which is the one that is wanted. Then the inner skin is dried in the sun very slowly, and it is this drying that makes it curl up in the way you see it in the stores at home. It does not require a rich soil for its production, and many of the cinnamon gardens of Ceylon are on sandy land that would not easily produce anything else."
Frank asked if all the cinnamon used in the world came from the island of Ceylon.
"Not by any means," was the reply; "but there was a time when Ceylon had a monopoly of the commerce. When the Dutch held the island they carried the trees to Java and started the culture there; and the Chinese have a tree that belongs to the same family as this one, though its product is not as good. The Chinese variety is called cassia, and is extensively used for medicinal purposes. About half the cinnamon used in Europe and America comes from Ceylon, and the rest from Java, China, and South America."
It was near sunset when our friends returned to Galle, and were dropped at the door of the hotel. Before starting on the ride to Wockwalla the Doctor had sent the commissionnaire of the hotel to bring their baggage from the steamer, and on their return they found it waiting for them in the corridor. The heavy trunks were sent off early in the evening by a wagon bound for Colombo, and the three passengers were to leave about ten o'clock at night by the coach.
The distance between Galle and Colombo is nearly seventy miles, and a coach runs each way daily; the fare is £2 5s., or about $11.00, and an extra coach of four seats may be had for £11. The steamers of the P. and O. Company do not touch at Colombo, and passengers bound for that place are ticketed through at the same rates as to Galle alone. After the arrival of a steamer of this company at Galle the coaches are apt to be greatly crowded for a day or two, and, as one was due the next day, the Doctor thought it best to get off at once; besides, they had exhausted the sights of Galle, and there was no use in waiting longer.
The coach came to the hotel at the appointed hour, and the three passengers took their places. They found that they had the vehicle pretty much to themselves, as there was only one other passenger, an English coffee-planter who lived up country, and had been to Galle on business. The vehicle was a rickety affair, and the horses were not half as good as those that had drawn the boys in their journey through Java; Frank remarked the low condition of the team, and the Englishman told him that horses were dear in Ceylon, as they were not raised in the country, but were imported from Burmah, Australia, the Malay Archipelago, and the Persian Gulf. "Those of us who want horses," said he, "are constantly on the lookout for new lots of whalers, as we depend on them to recruit our stocks."
Fred modestly asked what the whalers had to do with bringing horses to Ceylon.
"I see," said the Englishman, laughing, "you don't understand our expressions. A 'whaler' is a horse that has been imported from Australia; when you get to Colombo you will see placards on the walls, or advertisements in the papers, that choice lots of whalers have just been received, and will be sold at auction on a certain day if not previously disposed of at private sale."
"I suppose," Frank remarked, "that it is in the same way that foreigners living in China call an imported horse a 'griffin;' do you call these horses griffins as well as whalers?"
"Not often," answered the Englishman; "but sometimes you hear the name from an Englishman who has been in China. In India and Ceylon the term griffin is applied to a newly-arrived Englishman, and it sticks to him till he has been a year in the country. Griffin is frequently abbreviated to 'griff,' and those who are familiar with the talk of Englishmen in India know perfectly well what is meant when a man is called a griff."
"Returning to horses," he continued, "the best are from Australia, and they sell for nearly double the prices that the others will bring. Then we have them from the Persian Gulf, of a poor quality so far as appearance is concerned, but they do very good service. The team that we now have is composed of Gulf horses, and what they lack in speed they make up in savage tempers. They are difficult to manage, and, as one of your countrymen once remarked in my hearing, 'they are very handy with their heels!' A better horse than this is the Pegu pony, as it is called; it comes mostly from the western end of Sumatra, and stands the climate very well, besides being less vicious than the rest, but it cannot equal the Australian for speed."
DONKEY AND PACK-SADDLE.
"We use donkeys here for carrying burdens, just as they are used in nearly every part of the world. They are rather too weak for riding purposes, and you will not often see them with riding-saddles on their backs; the pack-saddle is almost as large as the animal that carries it, but it is lighter than you would suppose, as it is made from pandanus-leaves and coir-rope, and serves its purpose very well."
The greater part of this conversation occurred after the coach had started on its journey and before it reached the first station for changing horses. The road was excellent, and the team made such progress as to surprise the boys, who had thought such sorry animals could go little faster than a walk. The horses kept an even pace of about seven miles an hour, and hardly broke from a trot for miles where the road was level. The road was lined on each side by cocoa-nut-trees, and their new acquaintance told the boys that the trees continued without interruption all the way from Galle to Colombo.
The change of horses was made by the light of torches, and the kicking and general restlessness of the animals confirmed what the Englishman had said about their bad tempers. The drivers and stablemen seemed to have a wholesome respect for the brutes as long as they were in danger from their heels—but when the team was all ready, and the driver had mounted to his box, he made up for any previous forbearance by a liberal use of the whip.
GATHERING COCOA-NUTS.
After passing the first station the travellers settled down to sleep, and, as there were four of them, each had a corner to himself. The boys slept quite well during the night, waking only from an occasional jolt or when stopping at the stations for the change of horses. The night air was damp from the fog that poured in from the sea, and, by advice of their new acquaintance, they wrapped themselves well around the throat to avoid taking cold.
In the morning they were still among the cocoa-trees, and, as they looked out on the forest of tall trunks extending as far as they could see in any direction, the conversation naturally turned upon the uses of this product of the earth. The coffee-planter told them that there were fifteen varieties of the palm-tree in Ceylon, the most of them growing in the hilly regions of the interior of the island. "The cocoa-nut palm," said he, "grows only along the coast; you find it occasionally among the hills, but not often, and it never seems to flourish there."
"And I suppose its chief use is to produce cocoa-nuts?" Fred remarked, as the stranger paused.
"That is its principal use," was the reply; "but, according to the natives, it has ninety-nine others."
"A hundred uses for one tree!" replied Fred, in astonishment.
"Yes," said the stranger, "the natives claim that they can rely on the cocoa-palm for a hundred different things. It is sufficient to build, rig, and freight the small vessels of the Maldive Islands. It produces wine, water, oil, sugar, spirits, vinegar, and milk; a species of sago is obtained from the pith of the trunk near the head, and a vegetable like cabbage from the young buds when boiled; the old leaves make huts, fences, baskets, and the like, and the young leaves are yellow and transparent, so that they make pretty lanterns and decorations; the shells of the nuts are made into cups, ladles, spoons, and similar utensils, and, when not wanted for any other purposes, they can be converted into charcoal for cooking food. From the fibres of the leaves brooms can be made, the butts of the stalks make paddles and handles to farming implements, while the fibres of the husks may be converted into ropes, twine, matting, carpets, and mattresses.
"You may think that is all, but it isn't. The tree has many medicinal properties: the natives extract a powerful oil from the bark, which they use in cutaneous diseases; the juice of the flower makes an astringent lotion like alum; a decoction of the root is given in fevers; and the juice of the leaves mixed with some of the oil is used for ophthalmia. Cocoa-nut-oil is the best remedy for the stings of insects, and it is already well known to European and American chemists. The bamboo is said to be one of the most useful trees in the world, but I doubt if it holds a higher place than the cocoa-nut-tree."
Frank wished to know how long the trees lived, and how soon they began to bear fruit.
A YOUNG COCOA-PALM.
"They begin to bear about the seventh year," replied the coffee-planter, "and are in full bearing at twelve years. As long as they live they produce from forty to fifty nuts a year on the average, and they keep it up for seventy or eighty years. They produce their fruit at different times in the year, so that you may see it in all stages of growth, from the blossom up to the nut that is ripe and ready to fall. Look at any of the trees as we ride past them, and see for yourselves."
The boys looked out of the windows of the coach, and verified the statements of their informer. While he was doing so, Frank made a mental calculation something like the following:
"There are said to be 20,000,000 cocoa-nut-trees in Ceylon. Now, if each tree makes forty nuts a year, they have 800,000,000 nuts, and I wonder what they do with them?"
He propounded the problem to the stranger; the latter smiled, and replied,
"Ceylon exports 2,000,000 gallons of cocoa-nut oil, and consumes as much more; it takes forty nuts for a gallon of oil, and thus we dispose of the product of 4,000,000 trees.
"Then there are 5,000,000 trees that produce toddy, which is the juice obtained by tapping the base of the buds just before they blossom. It is drunk sweet or fermented, but in the latter condition it has intoxicating qualities that are not at all beneficial. It contains a good deal of saccharine matter, and is boiled down sometimes into coarse sugar, and sometimes into a sort of cheap molasses. Toddy makes excellent vinegar, is used for leavening bread, and is distilled into the spirits called arrack. The word 'toddy' has gone into other languages, and is known in both England and America.
NESTS OF THE TODDY-BIRD.
"During the season of gathering the juice of the palm the gatherers are greatly disturbed by a small bird that drinks the juice, and calls all its friends to share it with him; it is known as the 'toddy-bird,' and his nest is shaped somewhat like that of the Baltimore oriole. The bird is a social one, and sometimes hundreds of nests will be found together on a single tree.
"We have disposed of the product of 9,000,000 trees, and have 11,000,000 remaining. Many millions of nuts are annually used as food by the natives, either in a green or ripe state, and great numbers are destroyed by the monkeys and other animals that infest the trees. For making the best qualities of coir-rope the nuts must be gathered when green, as the fibres become brittle when old, and the rope is of a poor sort. Then there are many millions of nuts exported to other countries, and on the whole very little of the product of the forest is allowed to go to waste."
RESIDENCE OF A WEALTHY FOREIGNER.
As they approached Colombo there were occasional glimpses of houses among the trees, and the boys were not surprised to learn that the cocoa forest was considered a desirable place of residence for the foreigners in Colombo who could afford homes out of the city. Avenues of palms led from the road to the dwellings, and in several instances there were evidences of liberal expenditure and excellent taste in the arrangement of the houses and their surroundings. Seven or eight miles from Colombo the planter called the attention of the boys to an island that was just visible through the trees, and was separated from the land by a very narrow channel. He explained that it was a favorite resort of the foreigners in Colombo when they wished to indulge in sea-bathing, and that a railway had lately been completed to it.
It was about eight o'clock in the morning when the coach rolled from the edge of the forest and out upon an open space which is used as a drilling-place for troops, and also for the races in which the residents of the city indulge occasionally. On the sea-front of this area the surf was breaking, and the pure breeze from the waters was a grateful refresher after the ride of the night. As they rose to the crest of the ridge the boys came in sight of the red walls of the city; in less than a quarter of an hour they were at the door of the principal hotel of Colombo.
SCENE ON THE COAST NEAR COLOMBO.