CEYLON.

Otago Witness, Issue 2051, 15 June 1893, Page 41

CEYLON.

The Country " Where Only Man is Vile."— The Big Tooth or 1 Buddha and a Curious Ceremony. — Immense Plantations of Tea Plants.—lncrease of the New Industry. — Some Characteristic Scenery. (San Francisco Bulletin Correspondent.) We are pretty high up in Ceylon and the climate is bearable, so we concluded to say something of THE LAND Off SPICY BREEZES, "where only man is vile." We certainly agree with the poet in the last line. Never have we seen so debased and shameless a people. There is hardly one that we have met of the natives, be they Singhalese, Malays, Lascars, Mohammedans, Buddhists, or Tamils, that is not a thief or a beggar. Beggars they certainly are from the highest to the lowest, until we are sickened at the sight of them, individually or as a whole. In every hotel, on every Btreet, at every resting place by the way, or wherever we go, we are sure to meet them. They thrust themselves upon us and go with us for blocks in spile of all we can do. The cripples and deformed, the maimed, the blind, and the lepers beset us everywhere, and are so disgusting that we cannot bear to look upon* them; and they are so persistent and annoying that one can hardly help striking them down in self-defence. It is quite a relief to get into a railway carriage and be locked in justj ust to be rid of the wretches. From Colombo to this place it is about 125 miles. The altitude is something above GOOOft— about as high as Mount Washington, in New Hampshire; but how different 1 Here nearly all kinds of tropical plants grow to perfection. At Kandy, 40 miles from here, everything is luxuriantly tropical. But, in that 40 miles, we rise more than 4000 ft, and the climate is materially changed, so that it is not unlike California. The floral kingdom is strikingly Calif ornian. But, alas! there are no California fruits, and tropical fruits to us have become too common by half. It is hardly 10 years since the coffee planters were ruined by the general blight and the entire destruction of the plantations. About that time an experiment was made with tea, so that in two or three years just a little— less than 4001b— wag exported, say, about eight years ago. But the land and the climate were so well adapted to its culture, and the inducements so great, that no less than 48,000,0001b were sent away last year. The present season's crop, it is expected, will be fully 50 per cent more. At that rate, what will it be in 10 or 20 years? Perhaps the readers of the Bulletin can form some idea when we say that every mountain, hill, and valley from Kandy to this place -40 miles— is covered with tea as far as the eye can reach on either hand. Thousands and tens of thousands of acres, and still additional tens of thousands of acres are being annually planted, that in two or three years will be yielding average crops. A tea plantation is not unlike the vineyards we see in California. It is green and beautiful, covering the hillsides and the mountain top 3to the height of 7000 ft or 8000 ft. When the crop is gathered it seems like a vineyard being pruned. The coffee plantations, when they failed, left everything ia order for the introduction of tea, so that there was no loss of time. In some fields we observed the coffee plants still standing, while the tea had been set, and was thriving among them. It looks to us that with the rapidly increasing acreage in Japan and this new field, the supply must very soon be much greater than the demand, and we shall not be surprised if in a few years the pries of tea will be materially reduced.

With all of Nature's bounties, it is very difficult to provide a good table. Beef is goed for nothing; pork, except ham and bacon that is imported, is unknown ; milk is very scarce and miserably poor, and butter a farce; cheese is imported of course ; all kinds of vegetables are scarce and inferior i 9 scarce and miserable ; veal there is none ; chickens are very inferior; turkeys there are none to speak of ; game is scarce ; fish i 3 not good generally ; and so on to the end of ths chapter.

Tbis place (Kandy), is a kind of summer res Drt, where the lowlanders go to breathe. Here they manage to breathe all the year around, as it is some 2000 ft higher than the sea level at Colombo. We are located in a private bungalow, very prettily situated. The park and lake are backed by a beautiful mountain, everlastingly green and inviting, up which wind innumerable roads and paths to the various bungalows situated all along upon its sides. Many of them are completely embowered in flowers and foliage, but at night their many lights peep out like stars. The views from these bungalows are superb, overlooking, as they do, the beautiful valley, with the main Btreet of the city, the park, the lake, and the Governor's palace in the foreground. The great temple is a little to the right, where the tooth of Buddha is kept in a golden shrine, whence it is taken oace a year and packed around the city upon the back of an old elephant that has been so honoured for more than 100 years. The poor old fellow is really getting too feeble to perform the task, so they are securing another to take its place, which will bs consecrated, of course. The funny part of the whole thing is that it is not the tooth of Buddha at all, but a manufactured thing that was made to take the place of the real tooth that was smuggled here from India 1500 years ago, in the coils of a princess's hair, and which was found by the Dutch and destroyed 400 years ago. Still we are told this is a larger tooth than the real one, and quite as good and just as worthy of worship. Ours is quite a large bungalow, two storeys high, with broad porches The first storey has three broad arches and the second storey has stone columns which support the heavy tiled roof. Both the upper and lower porches are literally gardens of rara plants. A luxuriant vine covers the whole front, so that it appears like a green veil, upon which is wrought clusters of beautiful pink flowers, from lft to 3ft long. The effect is very beautiful, the lady being quite *an artist in pruning and arranging i»-. The view from the upper porch is very fine, overlooking as it does the park and lake and fronting the beautiful mountain, with the long

lines of trees bordering the lake, and the island in the middle of the lake artistically set around with bamboo and palms. We have strayel into the temple several times, and the other morning we caught the priests taking in the breakfast to Buddha's tooth, and as I was ready to give my rupee, I was anxious to witness the performance. A number of well-fed priests were passing the dibhe3 from one to another the same as the coolies pass coal on the steamers at Nagasaki, which is at the rate of 60 baskets in a minute fcr a single line, with at least 20 lines, every pound of which is weighed as it -goes into the bunkers. Well, when they were through with their offerings, which were many and bountiful, consisting of ric?, fish, meat, cakes, fruit, and flowers, they pulled a curtain and told me I must wait a few minutes. We supposed it was to give the tooth a chance. At all events, there was no alternative, so we waited until the curtain was again drawn, when it appeared to us about half of the provisions were gone. We presumed the appetite of the molar had been appeased. So we threw one rupee upon the great silver clatter, took a last look at the fraud, and departed with feelings of supreme disgust. We are glad to leave a conntiy where, even though Nature ha 3 done so much, yet where "man is so vile." Still we know we are to encounter other and po3tibly greater fraud 3 in the far-off land to which we are journeying, whence you may hear from us BgaiD. — B. P. M.