Realizing that the coffee crop is still in an experimental condition, some of the planters are giving their attention to the cinchona, which thrives greatly at Ceylon, even flourishing at elevations where coffee naturally dies out. The seeds of the cinchona are planted in nurseries, and when six months old are transplanted into prepared fields, where they make rapid growth. They do not begin to yield until the tree is eight years old. The earnestness with which the planters have generally adopted this idea must, if successful, as it seems sure to be, lead to very decided results when the crop becomes available for the markets of the world.
Banana groves and orchards bending under the weight of the rich nutritious fruit, tall cocoanut-trees with half a ton of ripening nuts in every tuft top, ant-hills nearly as high as native houses, rippling cascades, small rivers winding through the green valleys, tall flamingoes presiding over tiny lakes, and flowers of every hue and shape, together with birds such as one gazes at with curiosity in northern museums, all crowded upon our vision on this trip inland. No one should fail to visit Kandy who lands at Colombo, there is so much to see and to marvel at. Ceylon is a very Gan-Eden, the fairest known example of tropical luxuriance in all its natural features, its vegetable and animal kingdoms, its fruits, flowers, and scenery. In point of location the island is also greatly favored. It is fortunately situated outside the region of the cyclones, so frequent at certain seasons in the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean, as well as being free from the hurricanes of the Mauritius Sea, and the volcanic disturbances of the Eastern Archipelago. Snow is absolutely unknown. The exhibition of zodiacal light is not uncommon, and mirage in its many singular and interesting aspects is frequent; while the effulgence of the moon and stars of this latitude,--a constantly recurring hymn written in light,--will render the most prosy individual enthusiastic, keeping the heart constantly awake to love and beauty.
Ceylon is also much richer than is generally realized in its prehistoric monuments,--ancient Hindoo and Buddhist temples, and ruins of lofty pagodas from three to four hundred feet in height, dating many centuries previous to the appearance of Christ upon earth. What an unexplored field remains for the antiquarian, not quite untrodden, but still undeveloped! There is every evidence to show that there once existed upon this island a great and powerful empire; the gigantic remains of palaces and temples at once suggest the fact. There are also ruins to be seen of a most elaborate system of irrigation, which must have covered the country from Adam's Peak to Galle, like a net-work, with most perfect means to this end, so excellent as to be the marvel of modern engineers. Their completeness, intelligent purpose, and extent are marvelous. But no one can say, or reasonably surmise, what caused the ruin and decadence of the ancient capitals, which, like those about Delhi, have crumbled away, leaving only a blank memorial of their existence. What could have swept from the globe a population of millions, and left us no clearer record of their once highly civilized occupancy? The carved pillars, ornamental fragments of temples, and stone slabs skillfully wrought, which are scattered through the jungle, and in some instances overgrown by dense forests, attest both material greatness and far-reaching antiquity. It would seem as though nature had tried to cover up the many wrinkles of age with blooming vegetation. There are no legends even extant relating to the earliest of these remains. Pæstum, Memphis, and Cumæ reach far back into the dim past, though here the antiquarian is able to light us with the lamp of his knowledge; but as to the forest-covered remains of Ceylon, all is a blank, skeletons of the dead and buried past, mementos of a race who trod this beautiful island perhaps before the Pyramids or the Sphinx existed.