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.