The Pearl of India

by Maturin M. Ballou

One can well understand how easily a botanist may become absorbed in the study of this interesting family of plants. The variety and delicacy of form which they exhibit is infinite, ranging from the minutest specimens, almost like moss, to trees of thirty feet in height, with palm-like plumes. In the famous gardens just outside of Calcutta, the author visited a large conservatory occupied solely as a fernery, in which over thirty thousand specimens were classified.

Mischievous flying foxes abound in the neighborhood of Kandy, proving a serious annoyance to the planters, often taking the lion's share when the fruit is ripe, always selecting with greedy intelligence the most desirable product of the trees. They move in flocks, a hundred or more together, stopping where-ever the food is most inviting. The natives seem to have a mysterious dread of and never touch them, but European hunters sometimes kill and eat them, declaring the flesh to be much like that of the hare. The creature measures nearly three feet between the tips of its extended wings. The flying fox is unable to take flight from the earth, and if found there can easily be caught, nor can they run under such circumstances, but, waddling along, seek the nearest tree-trunk, which they ascend with great ease by means of their long, sharp claws. From the branches they throw themselves with a strong impetus, skimming for considerable distances through the air, like the flying squirrel of the low latitudes, and the flying possum of Australia. This last animal, like the kangaroo, is found only in the country just named, where the natives, having no religious compunctions as to the sacredness of animal life, kill the possum and feast heartily upon its body roasted in hunter's style.

It is not quite safe to walk in the moist and thickly overgrown parts of this garden of Peradenia,—the local name,—as there are dangerous snakes which one is liable to encounter, besides other reptiles of low latitudes, not always poisonous, but best avoided. Professor Haeckel tells us how terrible he found the nuisance of mosquitoes and stinging flies in this tropical garden. "There are of course mosquitoes certain in all such places," he says, "but far more dangerous than these annoying insects are the poisonous scorpions and millepeds, of which I have collected some splendid specimens,—scorpions six inches and millepeds a foot long." The chameleon is not so common as the last-named creatures to which the professor refers, and is not so noticeable, since its nature is to closely reflect the color of the tree or stone on which it may chance to rest for the time being. They are not liable to be detected unless in motion.

The ticpolonga, a deadly snake, the terror of the natives, is often found in this garden. The largest snake in Ceylon is the boa or anaconda, which is often seen here measuring over twenty feet in length. It feeds mostly on small animals, and is very little feared either by the natives or Europeans. It is not an agreeable sight, nevertheless, as the reader may suppose, to see a large boa moving along the ground near one's person, and free to act its own pleasure. Their deadly coil about any animal is almost sure death. The many vivid stories which have been published about the aggressive nature of this creature are, we believe, mostly exaggerations. The poisonous cobra, whose bite is as fatal as that of our dreaded rattlesnake, is much more to be feared under ordinary circumstances. The larger snake must be very hungry and greatly annoyed to induce it to attack any other than small animals like a rabbit or a rat, and as a rule they avoid the presence of human beings. Nevertheless, a boa will sometimes be seized with an aggressive purpose without any apparent cause. This has been proved in several instances where, after having been freely handled in a museum for months without harm, the creature has suddenly applied its great muscular strength to the purpose of strangling the exhibitor, winding its body with lightning-like rapidity about his throat and body. Under such circumstances, the life of the man has been saved by the instant action of associates, who severed the snake's body in several places with sharp knives. Any other attempted relief would have led to an increase of the strangling process. In one instance, at an exhibition in this country, it was necessary to cut the snake away piecemeal with a butcher's knife before the terrible muscular contraction of its body was relaxed. It was accomplished none too soon, as the insensible victim was already nearly dead, and was only resuscitated after prolonged and skillful effort.

When the coffee planters of this central district were almost in despair at the failure of their coffee crops, owing to the blight already described, the director of the Botanical Garden called their attention to the importance of devoting their lands to other purposes. The possibility of cultivating the cinchona-tree to advantage was suggested, as well as the raising of tea. Both these plans were given a trial, and were gradually adopted. Now, both industries flourish vastly in Ceylon, to the mutual advantage of the planters and the world at large. The seed of the cinchona-tree is first planted in nurseries, and when a year old the plant is removed to prepared grounds, where it makes rapid progress. The tree does not begin to yield the bark which constitutes its peculiar value until it is seven or eight years old, when a ready market is found for all that can be produced, and at fairly remunerative prices. The latest statistics to which the author could gain access showed that five years since, Ceylon was exporting sixteen million pounds of the medicinal bark annually, an aggregate which would rival nearly any South American port, Peruvian or otherwise.

While in this vicinity, one of our party was bitten in several places on the lower limbs by what proved to be land leeches, a species of this small creature which lives in dry grounds and also upon trees, burrowing in the bark. From the proportions of a darning-needle, this active and somewhat venomous little pest swells to the size of a pipe-stem, when it becomes filled with blood. Their bite often creates a painful sore, especially if one's circulation happens to be in an unhealthy condition. To protect themselves against this abomination, Europeans wear what are called leech-gaiters, reaching up to the knees, made from stout, close-knit canvas, or russet leather. The true water leech also abounds in the marshes and ponds of the island, and is quite destructive to animals which frequent these places. Domestic buffaloes seek the ponds in which to submerge their bodies to get rid of stinging flies and voracious mosquitoes, but they sometimes lose their lives by the combined attack of these more formidable enemies, the water leeches. After one of these bloodsuckers is fairly fixed upon the body of man or beast, it will not give up its hold until it has drawn its fill of blood. When this condition is reached, the leech drops off, and, like a snake after a hearty meal, it becomes dormant for a long time.

There are plenty of reptiles in all parts of Ceylon, but, as we have said, they keep mostly hidden from human beings. The gardens and woods are infested with ticks, so called, resembling small crabs, and armed with similar forceps with which to torment their victims. One almost requires a microscope to see these little black atoms, though they possess gigantic ability to inflict painful and highly irritating bites. This insect quickly buries itself under the skin, where it creates a lasting sore unless it is thoroughly eradicated, together with the poison that surrounds it. The natives use cocoanut oil as a preventive to the attack of the ticks, and it is true that they will drop from any spot where they encounter this pungent lubricator. In some parts of Ceylon, the leech pest is so prevalent as to render whole districts quite uninhabitable by human beings.

At Kandy as well as in the vicinity of Point de Galle, frequent attempts have been made to establish sugar plantations, but the soil or the climate, or both, proved to be unfavorable to the growth of the cane. Natives, here and elsewhere, raise a few hills of it about their cabins, which they chew for its sweetness, when the stalk becomes sufficiently ripe; it is especially the delight of children, under this condition. With the aid of proper fertilizers there would seem to be no good reason why sugar-cane could not be profitably grown in Ceylon.

The species of palm familiarly known as the jaggery palm is largely cultivated in the central province of the island. Its sap is boiled down so as to produce a coarse brown sugar, which is much used by all classes in its crude state. Why it is not refined for more delicate purposes, since the sugar-cane is not available, it is impossible to say. Farina is also extracted from the pith of this palm, forming, as is well known, a very palatable and nutritious food. The indolent natives must be spurred by foreign enterprise into obtaining this valuable article of export, before they will labor to procure it. Open-handed Nature, in her bounteous liberality, spoils these heedless children of the tropics.

Near Kurunaigalla, one of the ancient capitals of the island, situated about sixty miles northeast of Colombo and ten or twelve miles north of Kandy, there are some very interesting ruins, together with several enormous boulders of red rock, which somehow strike one as being very much out of place. They are too enormous to have been transported by glacial action, by which method we account for the position of so many big boulders in the northern portions of our own continent. One of these in the neighborhood we are speaking of is called "The Elephant's Tusk," towering six hundred feet into the air; but why it is thus named is not obvious. There are very old plumbago mines hereabouts, and a group of mouldering stone lions, elephants, and a figure designed to represent that fabulous creature, the unicorn. These recall somewhat similar groups one sees in the wilds of continental India, mementos which are believed to antedate by ten or fifteen centuries the origin of the famous "buried cities" of Ceylon.