55'^ 



fKE T^OPiCAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[Feb. 1, 1887, 



soil with a proportion of iron in it which coffee did 

 not like. Outside the Ambawella Valley I saw tea 

 growing well in patana soil and learned from my 

 good friend, Mr. Cotton, that although there is 

 some difficulty at first in reconciling the plants 

 to the grass-land soil, they seem at once to be 

 at home whoa the tap-root gets well down into 

 the Bubsoil. Unless Mr. Kellow resolves to devote 

 his patana land on Albion to timber tree growth, 

 I cannot doubt that tea will do well between his 

 shelter belts of wattle, and the result of my re- 

 visit to New Galway and its neighbourhood and 

 what I saw, is to convince me more strongly 

 than ever that a very considerable proportion of the 

 better patana lands of Uva are calculated to grow, 

 not only timber trees but tea, well and profitably. 

 All Ceylon knows about the splendid fruit, peaches 

 and especially plums grown by Mr. W. Cotton on 

 Warwick. The large Ootacamund plums are espe- 

 cially famous and Mr. Nock is grafting this kind 

 on the smaller plum, which has about as great 

 a tendency to send up shoots as has the silver 

 wattle. Here, as at Hakgala, we were struck with 

 the magnificent foliage of the tree tomato. As an 

 ornamental plant, it is worth growing; but the 

 fruits are really nice (much like gooseberries) when 

 ripe and eaten for dessert ; while as a stew or jam, 

 it is most difficult to distinguish them from apricot. 

 The tree tomato and the cho-cho are great suocesses 

 with Mensrs. Cotton and Kellow (whose bungalows 

 are in close proximity, while the stores of the three 

 estates are also close together at the bottom of 

 the valley) ; indeed the cho-cho, (the cooked 

 fruit of which closely resembles vegetable mar- 

 row,) is so prolific that the surplus fruits are 

 already used to feed pigs. The tree tomato, 

 the eho-cho and the edible passion fruit, are 

 great acquisitions on estates and seem 

 to flourish everywhere at high altitudes. A 

 gentleman from Assam tells us that there the 

 gigantic passion flower, the grenadilla of the 

 West Indies is common and the fruit largely used. We 

 do not know why this fruit has gone out of view 

 in Ceylon. We remember its introduction, (by Mr. 

 David Baird Lindsay of Kajawella* we think,) more 

 than iO years ago, and it used to be grown at 

 Colombo, climbing up jak trees. For many years 

 we have seen it only as an escape in the 

 Holnicot jungle above Nawalapittiya. From New 

 Galway we brought a gigantic citron, weighing 3 lb 

 which may for this week be seen (and scented, the 

 smell being delicate lemon) at the Ohnerver Office. 

 —Although we could not revisit the plum-pudding 

 rock in the depths of the Ambawella Valley, Mr. 

 Kellow led us to " View Toint" at the mouth of 

 the Valley, whence we looked out upon the 

 larger portion of Haputale, the Church and some 

 of the stores gleaming white in the sunlight. 

 Up above the deep Ambawella Valley we got a 

 glimpse of the patana on which the Ambawella 

 station of the long delayed Uva railway is to be 

 placed, and from "View Point" we saw well into 

 the Idulgashena Gap, through Avhich the line will 

 pass on to the shelving grassy range along which it 

 will seek its present terminus on the Haputale 

 pass. Here and in our journey to Albion we enjoyed 

 views of the difi'erent divisions of Uva, which, in 

 the fine weather which followed the rain, were 

 inexpressibly grand and beautiful ; while in passing 

 upwards between the massive Hakgala and the 

 beautiful wooded and patana ridges opposite it, 

 the scenery was in some places sublime. But from 

 "View Point" it was sad to look down on the 

 remains ef the first and second Ambawella bungalows : 

 there is now a third in quite a different position. 



* It i» &oi.isU3}io§ «3 F&lUk9ll« stillf 



In the earliest built of all, in April 1865, my 

 brother Highlander, Mr. Allister MacLellan, " in 

 the dress of old Gaul " entertained me to pipe 

 music, — music which is heard to chief advantage 

 amidst the echoings of mountain valleys. I fancy 

 I appreciated Mr. MacLellan's music more than the 

 late Mr. Cruwell is said to have done. " That 

 will do! that will do! that is beautiful! that is 

 enough I " the musical German is described as ex- 

 claiming in ill-concealed agony, while MaoLellan 

 responded, " Man, I have not yet begun the 

 claine ! That is only the over— c/iure ! " The 

 Highlander probably did not think the Ger- 

 man "capable of giving an opeenyon" on the 

 music so dear to the sons of the Gael. Alas ! 

 Cruwell and MacLellan, and my original host and 

 guide the elder Kellow, and so many more, are all 

 gone, so that " the place which once knew them, 

 shall know them no more for ever." I heard of a 

 roll of names including about a score of Superin- 

 tendents on Ambawella, the larger proportion being 

 dead. I, close on my 71st birthday, paid a pathetic 

 visit to the el(^er Cotton, bed-ridden from an ac- 

 cident in his 77th year. Here on Warwick, besides 

 the kindest hospitality, I thus met three suc- 

 cessive generations of Europeans connected with 

 Ceylon. Old Mr. Cotton came to the island in 

 1844, never again leaving it, I believe. His 

 son William born in Ceylon, I imagine, mar- 

 ried a Scotch lady from Aberdeenshire, and they 

 have children in Ceylon and " at home." To one 

 of them, a young lady just returned from " Home,'; 

 we were indebted for " low and sweet " strains 

 of song and piano music, the most complete possible 

 contrasts to poor Allister MacLellan's " skirling" 

 pibrochs of twentj-two years ago. With this pleas- 

 ing reminiscence it is fitting and congenial I should 

 close my record of "New Galway Eevisited." 



BRITISH INDUSTRY IN CENTRAL AFRICA. 



A telegram in ?'Ae Timeg of Tuesday informs us 

 that the German East African Company mean to start 

 plantations of coffee, sugar, and other cultures in 

 the immense territory (70,000 square miles) recently 

 acquired by them from the Sultan of Zanzibar. la 

 this connextiou it will be of interest to give some 

 account of what has been done further south in the 

 Lake Nyassa region by an English company, the 

 " African Lakes Company," who have been working 

 quietly for eight years, with very marked success — 

 a success, indeed, which seldom accompjinies enter- 

 prise in Africa. 



Those familiar with Livingstone's later explorations 

 will remember that this investigations resulted in the 

 discovery of the great Lake Nyassa, which empties 

 its waters into the Zambesi, the Shird serving as a 

 conduit. The dream of his life was to utilize the 

 extensive waterway for the introduction of com- 

 merce, in order that the tribes which furnish by far 

 the largest quota of human chatties to the slave- 

 trader of East Africa might have a chance in turu' 

 ing the natural wealth of their country to good 

 account, and not be dependent on a bloodthirsty set 

 of half-eastes for every yard of calico or string of 

 beads. But Livingstone's purse was a very short 

 one as African expenditure goes nowadays. He 

 nevertheless sank nearly his whole means of de' 

 volopnig this idea, which had but one result — 

 his failure showed to those who were to come 

 after just what should be avoided in the future, 

 and what insisted upon. As a reconnoissauce it 

 was all valuable ; but it sorely crippled him. In 

 common with all African rivers the Shire has 

 its staircase of cataracts, and thus a clear run from 

 the Indian Ocean up from the Zambesi to Lake 

 Nyassa is impossible. A "portage" of 75 miles 

 half-way between the lake and the Zambesi is a 

 necessity. However, there were plentj' of Livings 

 stone's couDtrymt'u north of the Tweed who had such 

 faith in tiui doctor's bard'headed wisUoa tbat>witl3 



