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MRS COL. WALKER'S TOUR IN CEYLON. 235 
difficulty, though we met with none so bad as the Matura 
people. In the interior, the natives still retain a kind of awe 
for the headmen, through whom we succeeded in procuring 
coolies; but this will not last long, and even now, the head- 
men are disagreeably circumstanced, in being obliged fre- 
quently to give orders, which they have no power or means 
to enforce. This state of things certainly requires to be 
amended ; but how, I do not pretend to know. 
“ We got off, however, at last; Col. W. on my pony, an 
animal, as he knew from experience, well calculated to sur- 
mount the difficulties we were likely to encounter, and I in 
my Madura palankeen, having sent back our gig and horses, 
and dismissed our baggage carts (here called bullock bandies) 
at Matura. For the first two miles our road passed through 
what the natives term gardens, in most of which were respec- _ 
table looking houses; then we travelled for a mile on a 
raised dyke or daur, as it is here called, through a swamp, 
in many places under water; the remaining part of our 
evening's journey through paddy-fields, from which the crop 
had just been removed. Slept in a house belonging to a 
native headman, at a place called Attadewa, and saw many 
plants, but nothing new. A good deal of coffee seems to be 
i _ Cultivated by the natives in their gardens. P 
“Our road next day continued for four miles through paddy 
fields, on good raised embankments, with low wooded hills 
in the distance, a fine fertile and (for Ceylon) well-cultivated - 
country; most of the way near the course of the Pantura 
river, which we crossed, and again travelled through enclosed 
gardens, containing jack, bread-fruit, cocoa-nuts, plantains, 
and coffe. The remaining part of our day's journey was 
again through paddy-fields, on which the crop was stil 
standing. I saw a number of the birds here called water 
hens; when alarmed by our approach, they always ran to- - E 
wards the river. I never observed them take wing. By ten "s 
Boodu appears in higher consideration jn this part of the 
country than on the coast, if we may judge by the — 
