118 EXPEDITION TO JAPAN. 



The other staples of Ceylon are cinnamon, coffee, sugar, rice, arica nut, precious stones, 

 plumbago, (probably the best in the world,) and other vegetable and mineral productions. 

 The pearl fisheries, for which the island was once famous, have very much diminished in their 

 yield. The natives account for the diminution by declaring that the pearl-oyster has the power 

 of locomotion, and has shifted its former quarters to some new ground not yet discovered. The 

 scarcity is probably owing to the fact that the pearls have been disturbed before they have 

 reached their full development, which is said to require a period of seven years. At one time 

 the fishery was a source of handsome revenue to the government ; in 1797 the sum of £140,000 

 was derived from it. Since that period the proceeds have gradually fallen off, until at 

 present they amount to almost nothing. Diving for the pearl-oyster is a favorite occupation 

 among the natives of Ceylon, as a skilful diver can earn ten times the wages of a farm laborer, 

 and the employment is not, as has been stated, unfavorable to health, but, on the contrary, - 

 conducive to strength and vigor of body. 



Ceylon abounds in a rich vegetation and many trees of a vigorous growth, among which, in 

 addition to the cocoa-nut and Palmyra palm, there is the kettal tree, from the sap of which is 

 produced a coarse sugar, and from its fruit, when dried and reduced to powder, a substitute for 

 rice flour. The talipot, with its immense foliage, is one of the wonders of the island ; a single 

 leaf of this tree is sufficient to cover beneath its shade several persons, and it supplies, when 

 softened by boiling, a substitute for paper, upon which the natives are in the habit of writing, 

 and find in it a most durable material. The cinnamon, with its beautiful white blossom and its 

 red tipped leaves, and other odoriferous trees, are among the native products of Ceylon ; but the 

 stories of the fragrance of the aroma exhaled from these trees and the plants, and which 

 voyagers have described as sensible at a distance from the land, are gross exaggerations. No 

 fragrance was observed equal to that of the magnolia or of the delightful perfume of the 

 newly-mown grass of our own country, or in any degree approaching the delicious odor of the 

 heliotrope and geranium hedges of Madeira. The cultivated flowers that were seen at Ceylon 

 and at Mauritius were, in fact, remarkable for their want of fragrance. Rich woods of various 

 kinds, as the rose, the ebony, the satin, and lime, grow in abundance on the island, and are 

 used for many purposes of utility and ornament. 



Within the forests and in the jungles of Ceylon are found a great variety of wild animals — 

 the elephant, the hyena, tiger-cat, the bear, the deer, and the monkey, are among the most 

 abundant. The number of elephants is incredibly great, and, issuing in troops from their lairs, 

 they come crushing down the cultivated fields and plantations and devouring the crops, with 

 great loss to the proprietors. They are found in all the uncultivated parts of the island, but 

 their favorite haunts are near to the farms, to which they prove so destructive that the colonial 

 government pays a reward of 7s. 6d. (about $1 85) for every tail of the animal which is brought 

 to the authorities. Mr. Talbot, the government agent at Galle, stated, surprising as it may 

 seem, that he had paid during the preceding year two hundred pounds sterling for tails, which 

 would give six hundred as the number of eleiihants destroyed. 



An army officer, as was stated to the Commodore, actually killed, during his residence on 

 the island, no less than six hundred of these gigantic animals. Within a few months of the 

 arrival of the Mississippi, two officers of the garrison, one of whom (Lieutenant Lennox) 

 became personally known to the Commodore, destroyed no less than forty elephants in the 

 course of a sporting visit of six weeks to the jungle. They are ordinarily shot with a rifle ; 



