The cocoanut-trees are divided according to their situations and soils into five classes—the first and second classes being attivepoo, or sea-coast; and the third, fourth, and fifth, karavepoo, or inland cocoanut-trees. Each tree pays, on an average, eighteen pies,[393] those which are unproductive from age or youth being excluded. The betel-nut palms pay, on an average, six pies, and the jack-trees twenty-eight pies; but the tax on gardens is not more than forty per cent. of the landlord's rent. A cocoanut-tree is estimated to bear at least sixteen to forty nuts in the year, according to its site; and the owner of a plantation derives profit from the leaves as well as from the husks and shells of the nut. The leaves, used for covering houses, sell at two and a half to five Rs. the thousand, each tree yielding ten to fifteen annually; and the husks, for coir ropes, fetch six annas the thousand.[394]
The betel-nut palm (Areca catechu), which is also taxed has a long slender smooth stem, and graceful curving fronds. I have seen palm-trees in the South Sea islands, many kinds in the forests of South America, and in India; but, of the whole tribe, the betel-nut palm is certainly the most elegant and beautiful. Dr. Hooker likens it "to an arrow shot from heaven, raising its graceful head and feathery crown in luxuriance and beauty above the verdant slopes." A tree will produce 300 nuts in the year, and continues to bear for twenty-five years. The nut is very hard, the size of a cherry, and is chewed by all the natives of India with the leaves of the betel-pepper (Chavica betel) spread with chunam. It is cut into long narrow pieces, and rolled up in the leaves of the betel-pepper or pawn. It makes the mouth and teeth red, and gives the chewer a disgusting appearance. The consumption must be enormous, for it is chewed by 50,000,000 of men, and, next to tobacco, is the most extensively used narcotic; but it has none of the excellent properties of the coca-leaf of the Peruvians.
The jack (Artocarpus integrifolius), the only other tree which is taxed in Malabar, grows to a considerable size, and the wood is much used for furniture of all kinds. The fruit, a favourite article of food, is of enormous dimensions, and grows out of the trunk. In Travancore they put the whole fruit in the ground, and, when the young shoots grow up, the stems are tied together with straw, and by degrees they form one stem, bearing fruit in six or seven years.[395] Besides the taxed trees, the gardens round Calicut generally contain mangos and nux vomica.
In addition to the rice or wet cultivation, and the above-mentioned trees, the upland or dry cultivation of rice and sesame or gingelee oil-seed is assessed on an annual inspection: forty per cent. of the gross produce of the former being deducted, on account of the peculiar labour and probable loss, and twenty per cent. of the remainder being the Government share. The sesame cultivation has no deduction from the gross produce; and ginger, pepper, and some other dry crops are free of land-tax. The pepper cultivation is chiefly carried on in northern Malabar, and ginger in the Shernaad district, south of Calicut, by the Moplahs.[396]
The other taxes are abkarry, or the privilege of selling liquors, which is either farmed by public sale, or levied from the toddy-drawers, when it is called kutty-chatty (knife and pot) tax; mohturfa on houses, shops, fishing-boats, oil-mills, and looms; licences, stamps, and the salt monopoly; the whole revenue of Malabar in 1859 having been 266,860l. The income-tax had not yet been levied at the time of our visit, but its nature had been carefully explained to the people, it had been stripped of everything that was offensive or inquisitorial, and no difficulty was anticipated in its introduction, although it was very generally considered that it was unwise and impolitic, and that it would be unproductive. In the matter of taxes there was a striking contrast between Peru, whence we had just come, and where they are scarcely known, and this land of manifold imposts.
On the whole, however, Malabar is a splendid possession; the people are very flourishing, the population increasing, and cultivation rapidly encroaching on the forests. There is no gang robbery, but occasional housebreaking, and a good many murders, often caused by jealousy, the criminals usually making a full confession, and thus saving much trouble.
In the evening we embarked in a canoe which had been prepared for us near the fine timber bridge over the Calicut river, on the road to Beypoor. The setting sun and banks of rosy clouds were visible through the graceful fronds of the cocoanut-trees as we drove along the shady road, with occasional glimpses of the sea. The canoe was very long, and cut out of one trunk, with raised bow and stern, ornamentally carved. It was pulled by four tall wiry-looking Moplahs, with nothing on but clouts and huge umbrella-hats, made of the tallipot palm;[397] and a fifth steered with a paddle. Their oars were long bamboos, with circular boards fastened to one end by neat coir seizings. We started a little after sunset, and passed from the Calicut river by a backwater into the Beypoor, where there were many shallow places, and the Moplahs had constantly to jump out and drag the canoe over them. The banks of the river are wooded down to the water's edge, with groves of slender betel-nut palms rising aloft, and standing out against the starry sky. The foliage was covered with brilliant fire-flies, and here and there we passed a hut, with its owner standing on the shore, waving a burning brand. All night the boatmen sang noisy glees, and in the morning we reached the landing-place at Eddiwanna, forty miles from Calicut, and near the Government teak plantations of Nellamboor.
These plantations were originated by Mr. Conolly, the late Collector of Malabar, with a view to the establishment of nurseries for replenishing the teak forests, as nearly all the fine timber had been felled many years ago. There is a great deal in North Canara of small size, and still more in Cochin and Travancore; but the reckless system of felling threatened the same results as has already overtaken the supply of chinchona-bark in South America. The only forests containing teak, in Malabar, in which Government has a proprietary right, are 25 square miles in the Palghat talook, where all the mature trees have long since gone to the Bombay dockyard; but in 1842 leases of forest-land were obtained from the Zamorin for the cultivation of teak, 70 to 80 square miles in extent, chiefly in the Ernaad talook, near Nellamboor. This most important and now successful measure is due to the zeal and perseverance of Mr. Conolly, and there is a good prospect of the stock of teak-timber in these forests being eventually replenished. The trees, however, require a growth of 60 or 80 years to reach a maturity fitting the wood for shipbuilding; but it is then unequalled by any other known timber; it does not injure iron, and is not liable to shrink in width.
It was some time before the method of inducing the teak-seeds to germinate was discovered, and several experiments were tried. In the forests it was observed that the seeds were prepared for growth by losing the hard outer shell through the warmth caused by fires which annually consume the brushwood. Mr. Conolly, therefore, burnt a coating of hay over the ground where the seeds were sown. This trial was unsuccessful, and in 1843 it was found that the best method was to steep the nuts in water for thirty-six hours, then sow them in holes four inches apart, and half an inch under the surface, covering the beds with straw, so as to prevent evaporation, and gently watering them every evening. By following this plan the seeds germinated, and sprouted in from four to eight weeks. In 1844 as many as 50,000 young trees, raised in the adjacent nurseries, were planted, eight feet apart, in the cleared ground near Nellamboor, along the banks of the Beypoor river, which had been cleared of jungle. The seedlings are transplanted from the nursery at the age of three months, and for the first seven or eight years they sprout up very fast, but afterwards they grow slowly. From 1843 to 1859 as many as 1,200,000 trees have been put down, and they are now planted at the rate of 70,000 a year. Much care is required in systematic thinning and pruning, and, for the superintendence of this important work, an annual visit is paid to the plantations by Mr. McIvor, who is now so ably conducting the chinchona experiment on the Neilgherry hills.
We were met by Mr. McIvor at Eddiwanna, and started for the village of Wundoor, six miles distant, in munsheels or hammocks, slung to bamboos with a shade over them, and carried by six men, who kept up unearthly yells the whole time. The road leads through rice-cultivation and groves of betel-nut palms, jacks, and mangos. Wundoor is a pretty village, with an avenue of sumach-trees[398] leading up to the post-house or travellers' bungalow. These post-houses, which are erected by the Government at easy stages along all the roads in India, for the convenience of travellers, are exceedingly comfortable, and render travelling in India as easy and commodious as it is the reverse in Peru and other parts of South America. At Wundoor the first bungalow we had seen put an end to all idea of having to rough it while travelling in India. The building contained several clean rooms, with cane-bottom sofas, arm-chairs, and tables; and outside there was a pleasant verandah, with a glorious view of the Koondah mountains, which it was necessary to ascend on our road to the Neilgherries. A clump of trees, consisting of jacks, mangos, and peepuls, formed a huge arch, through which there was an enchanting landscape of smiling hill and dale, with the dense forest beyond, crowned by the broken outline of the distant mountains.