Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon - Sir Samuel White Baker (ready player one ebook .txt) 📗

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.


Colombo--Dullness of the Town--Cinnamon Garden--A Cingalese Appo--Ceylon Sport--Jungle Fever--Newera Ellia--Energy of Sir E. Barnes--Influence of the Governor--Projected Improvements.


CHAPTER II.


Past Scenes--Attractions of Ceylon--Emigration--Difficulties in Settling--Accidents and Casualties--An Eccentric Groom--Insubordination--Commencement of Cultivation--Sagacity of the Elephant--Disappointments--"Death" in the Settlement--Shocking Pasturage--Success of Emigrants--"A Good Knock-about kind of a Wife".


CHAPTER III.


Task Completed--The Mountain-top--Change in the Face of Nature--Original Importance of Newera Ellia--"The Path of a Thousand Princes"--Vestiges of Former Population--Mountains--The Highlands of Ouva--Ancient Methods of Irrigation--Remains of Aqueducts--The Vale of Rubies--Ancient Ophir--Discovery of Gold-Mineral Resources--Native Blacksmiths.


CHAPTER IV.


Poverty of Soil--Ceylon Sugar--Fatality of Climate--Supposed Fertility of Soil--Native Cultivation--Neglect of Rice Cultivation--Abandoned Reservoirs--Former Prosperity--Ruins of Cities--Pollanarua--The Great Dagoba--Architectural Relics--The Rock Temple--Destruction of Population--Neglected Capabilities--Suggestions for Increasing Population--Progress of Pestilence--Deserted Villages--Difficulties in the Cultivation of Rice--Division of Labor--Native Agriculture.


CHAPTER V.


Real Cost of Land--Want of Communication--Coffee-planting--Comparison between French and English Settlers--Landslips--Forest-clearing--Manuring--The Coffee Bug--Rats--Fatted Stock--Suggestions for Sheep-farming--Attack of a Leopard--Leopards and Chetahs--Boy Devoured--Traps--Musk Cats and the Mongoose--Vermin of Ceylon.



CHAPTER VI.


"Game Eyes" for Wild Sports--Enjoyments of Wild Life--Cruelty of Sports--Native Hunters--Moormen Traders--Their wretched Guns--Rifles and Smooth-bores--Heavy Balls and Heavy Metal--Beattie's Rifles--Balls and Patches--Experiments--The Double-groove--Power of Heavy Metal--Curious Shot at a Bull Elephant--African and Ceylon Elephants--Structure of Skull--Lack of Trophies--Boar-spears and Hunting-knives--"Bertram"--A Boar Hunt--Fatal Cut.


CHAPTER VII.


Curious Phenomenon--Panorama of Ouva--South-west Monsoon--Hunting Followers--Fort M'Donald--River--Jungle Paths--Dangerous Locality--Great Waterfall--Start for Hunting--The Find--A Gallant Stag--"Bran" and "Lucifer"--"Phrenzy's" Death--Buck at Bay--The Cave Hunting-box--"Madcap's" Dive--Elk Soup--Former Inundation--"Bluebeard" leads off--"Hecate's" Course--The Elk's Leap--Variety of Deer--The Axis--Ceylon Bears--Variety of Vermin--Trials for Hounds--Hounds and their Masters--A Sportsman "shut up"--A Corporal and Centipede.



CHAPTER VIII.


Observations on Nature in the Tropics--The Dung Beetle--The Mason-fly--Spiders--Luminous Insects--Efforts of a Naturalist--Dogs Worried by Leeches--Tropical Diseases--Malaria--Causes of Infection--Disappearance of the "Mina"--Poisonous Water--Well-digging Elephants.


CHAPTER IX.


Instinct and Reason--Tailor Birds and Grosbeaks--The White Ant--Black Ants at War--Wanderoo Monkeys--Habits of Elephants--Elephants in the Lake--Herd of Elephants Bathing--Elephant-shooting--The Rencontre--The Charge--Caught by the Tail--Horse Gored by a Buffalo--Sagacity of Dogs--"Bluebeard"--His Hunt--A True Hound.


CHAPTER X.


Wild Fruits--Ingredients for a "Soupe Maigre"--Orchidaceous Plants--Wild Nutmegs--Native Oils--Cinnamon--Primeval Forests--Valuable Woods--The Mahawelli River--Variety of Palms--Cocoa-nut Toddy--Arrack--Cocoa-nut Oil--Cocoa-nut-planting--The Talipot Palm--The Areca Palm--Betel Chewing--Sago Nuts--Varicty of Bees--Waste of Beeswax--Edible Fungi--Narcotic Puff-ball--Intoxicating Drugs--Poisoned Cakes--The "Sack Tree"--No Gum Trees of Value in Ceylon.


CHAPTER XI.


Indigenous Productions--Botanical Gardens--Suggested Experiments--Lack of Encouragement to Gold-diggers--Prospects of Gold-digging--We want "Nuggets"--Who is to Blame?--Governor's Salary--Fallacies of a Five Years' Reign--Neglected Education of the People--Responsibilities of Conquest--Progress of Christianity.


CHAPTER XII.


The Pearl Fishery--Desolation of the Coast--Harbor of Trincomalee--Fatal Attack by a Shark--Ferocious Crocodiles--Salt Monopoly--Salt Lakes--Method of Collection--Neglect of Ceylon Hides--Fish and Fishing--Primitive Tackle--Oysters and Penknives--A Night Bivouac for a Novice--No Dinner, but a Good Fire--Wild Yams and Consequences--The Elephants' Duel--A Hunting Hermitage--Bluebeard's last Hunt--The Leopard--Bluebeard's Death--Leopard Shot.


CHAPTER XIII.


Wild Denizens of Forest and Lake--Destroyers of Reptiles--The Tree Duck--The Mysteries of Night in the Forest--The Devil-Bird--The Iguanodon in Miniature--Outrigger Canoes--The Last Glimpse of Ceylon--A Glance at Old Times.



EIGHT YEARS' WANDERINGS


CHAPTER I.


Colombo--Dullness of the Town--Cinnamon Garden--A Cingalese Appo--Ceylon Sport--Jungle Fever--Newera Ellia--Energy of Sir E. Barnes--Influence of the Governor--Projected Improvements.


It was in the year 1845 that the spirit of wandering allured me toward Ceylon: little did I imagine at that time that I should eventually become a settler.

The descriptions of its sports, and the tales of hairbreadth escapes from elephants, which I had read in various publications, were sources of attraction against which I strove in vain; and I at length determined upon the very wild idea of spending twelve months in Ceylon jungles.

It is said that the delights of pleasures in anticipation exceed the pleasures themselves: in this case doubtless some months of great enjoyment passed in making plans of every description, until I at length arrived in Colombo, Ceylon's seaport capital.

I never experienced greater disappointment in an expectation than on my first view of Colombo. I had spent some time at Mauritius and Bourbon previous to my arrival, and I soon perceived that the far-famed Ceylon was nearly a century behind either of those small islands.

Instead of the bustling activity of the Port Louis harbor in Mauritius, there were a few vessels rolling about in the roadstead, and some forty or fifty fishing canoes hauled up on the sandy beach. There was a peculiar dullness throughout the town--a sort of something which seemed to say, "Coffee does not pay." There was a want of spirit in everything. The ill-conditioned guns upon the fort looked as though not intended to defend it; the sentinels looked parboiled; the very natives sauntered rather than walked; the very bullocks crawled along in the midday sun, listlessly dragging the native carts. Everything and everybody seemed enervated, except those frightfully active people in all countries and climates, "the custom-house officers:" these necessary plagues to society gave their usual amount of annoyance.

What struck me the most forcibly in Colombo was the want of shops. In Port Louis the wide and well-paved streets were lined with excellent "magasins" of every description; here, on the contrary, it was difficult to find anything in the shape of a shop until I was introduced to a soi-disant store, where everything was to be purchased from a needle to a crowbar, and from satin to sail-cloth; the useful predominating over the ornamental in all cases. It was all on a poor scale and after several inquiries respecting the best hotel, I located myself at that termed the Royal or Seager's Hotel. This was airy, white and clean throughout; but there was a barn-like appearance, as there is throughout most private dwellings in Colombo, which banished all idea of comfort.

A good tiffin concluded, which produced a happier state of mind, I ordered a carriage for a drive to the Cinnamon Gardens. The general style of Ceylon carriages appeared in the shape of a caricature of a hearse: this goes by the name of a palanquin carriage. Those usually hired are drawn by a single horse, whose natural vicious propensities are restrained by a low system of diet.

In this vehicle, whose gaunt steed was led at a melancholy trot by an equally small-fed horsekeeper, I traversed the environs of Colombo. Through the winding fort gateway, across the flat Galle Face (the race-course), freshened by the sea-breeze as the waves break upon its western side; through the Colpettytopes of cocoanut trees shading the road, and the houses of the better class of European residents to the right and left; then turning to the left--a few minutes of expectation--and behold the Cinnamon Gardens!

What fairy-like pleasure-grounds have we fondly anticipated! what perfumes of spices, and all that our childish imaginations had pictured as the ornamental portions of a cinnamon garden!

A vast area of scrubby, low jungle, composed of cinnamon bushes, is seen to the right and left, before and behind. Above, is a cloudless sky and a broiling sun; below, is snow-white sand of quartz, curious only in the possibility of its supporting vegetation. Such is the soil in which the cinnamon delights; such are the Cinnamon Gardens, in which I delight not. They are an imposition, and they only serve as an addition to the disappointments of a visitor to Colombo. In fact, the whole place is a series of disappointments. You see a native woman clad in snow-white petticoats, a beautiful tortoiseshell comb fastened in her raven hair; you pass her--you look back--wonderful! she has a beard! Deluded stranger, this is only another disappointment; it is a Cingalese Appo--a man--no, not a man--a something male in petticoats; a petty thief, a treacherous, cowardly villain, who would perpetrate the greatest rascality had he only the pluck to dare it. In fact, in this petticoated wretch you see a type of the nation of Cingalese.

On the morning following my arrival in Ceylon, I was delighted to see several persons seated at the "table-d'hote" when I entered the room, as I was most anxious to gain some positive information respecting the game of the island, the best localities, etc., etc. I was soon engaged in conversation, and one of my first questions naturally turned upon sport.

"Sport!" exclaimed two gentlemen simultaneously--"sport! there is no sport to be had in Ceylon!"--"at least the race-week is the only sport that I know of," said the taller gentleman.

"No sport!" said I, half energetically and half despairingly. "Absurd! every book on Ceylon mentions the amount of game as immense; and as to elephants--"

Here I was interrupted by the same gentleman. "All gross exaggerations," said he--"gross exaggerations; in fact, inventions to give interest to a book. I have an estate in the interior, and I have never seen a wild elephant. There may be a few in the jungles of Ceylon, but very few, and you never see them."

I began to discover the stamp of my companion from his expression, "You never see them." Of course I concluded that he had never looked for them; and I began to recover front the first shock which his exclamation, "There is no sport in Ceylon!" had given me.

I subsequently discovered that my new and non-sporting acquaintances were coffee-planters of a class then known as the Galle Face planters, who passed their time in cantering about the Colombo race-course and idling in the town, while their estates lay a hundred miles distant, uncared for, and naturally ruining their proprietors.

That same afternoon, to my delight and surprise, I met an old Gloucestershire friend in an officer of the Fifteenth Regiment, then stationed in Ceylon. From him I soon learnt that the character of Ceylon for game had never been exaggerated; and from that moment my preparations for the jungle commenced.

I rented a good airy house in Colombo as headquarters, and the verandas were soon strewed with jungle-baskets, boxes, tent, gun-cases, and all the paraphernalia of a shooting-trip.

What unforeseen and apparently trivial incidents may upset all our plans for the future and turn our whole course of life! At the expiration of twelve months my shooting trips and adventures were succeeded by so severe an attack of jungle fever that from a naturally robust frame I dwindled to a mere nothing, and very little of my former self remained. The first symptom of convalescence was accompanied by a peremptory order from my medical attendant to start for the highlands, to the mountainous region of Newera Ellia, the sanitarium of the island.

A poor, miserable wretch I was upon my arrival at this elevated station, suffering not only from the fever itself, but from the feeling of an exquisite debility that creates an utter hopelessness of the renewal of strength.

I was only a fortnight at Newera Ellia. The rest-house or inn was the perfection of everything that was dirty and uncomfortable. The toughest possible specimen of a beef-steak, black bread and potatoes were the choicest and only viands obtainable for an invalid. There was literally nothing else; it was a land of starvation. But the climate! what can I say to describe the wonderful effects of such a pure and unpolluted air? Simply, that at the expiration of a fortnight, in spite of the tough beef, and the black bread and potatoes, I was as well and as strong as I ever bad been; and