24 REVIEW. {January, 



which supplies the wants of so large a portion of the inhabitants of the 

 Maritime provinces ; and the scene, up to a recent period, of desolating 

 wars and stiU of practices which check population ; the vast area of the 

 Central Province, 5,191 miles, embraces a population of only 244,904, 

 the proportion to the square mile being under 50. The greater portion 

 of what is called the Mountain Zone is within the limits of tliis Province, 

 but the hilly region, which is exclusively the scene of European coffee 

 plantations, runs into the Western and North- Western Provinces. Over 

 this region are scattered some 100,000 Tamil labourers from Southern 

 India, who do not enter into the returns we are analyzing. In the Hill 

 country the Kandian Eice ten-aces are interspersed with the European 

 Coffee estates, — Coffee generally commencing at the altitude where Eice 

 cultivation ends. But a large portion of the Central Province, where it 

 marches with the Eastern and Southern, is not hilly, but flat and waste 

 and feverish, the rivers, which once fed the Sea- of Prakrama, being now al- 

 lowed to ' wander at their own sweet wiU ' through scenes whose beauty 

 cannot be surpassed. Alas that it should be the beauty on which men 

 cannot look and live ! We do not doubt that health and life will be yet 

 restored to scenes which at present are as fatal as they are fair ; but the 

 work is not to be done in om- day. Of the 600 Europeans now engaged 

 in the cultivation of Coffee in Ceylon, about three-fourths reside in the 

 Central Province. The North-Western Province is one recently erected by 

 annexations from the Western and Central, which, with advancing com- 

 merce and business, were becoming too unwieldy. The seat of its Agent 

 has been moved from Putlam, the principal town of the Maritime and Salt 

 Districts, to Komegalle, the capital of the Seven Korles and the centre of 

 a considerable Coffee cultivation on the part of Europeans, and Eice cul- 

 tivation on the part of the Natives. Cocoa-nut cultivation, by Europeans and 

 Natives, is continued from the Western Province along the shores of the 

 sea and backwaters of this Province. The Salt manufacture here is of much 

 importance ; and a canal, which is now in good order, is the medium by 

 which thousands of cwts. of this condiment are carried to the Western Pro- 

 vince. The extent of the North-Western Province is 2,363 miles, the popu- 

 lation 190,000: showing a proportion of about 57 inhabitants to the 

 square mile. The Southern is the smallest but not the least important of 

 the six Provinces into which the Island of Ceylon is divided. It contains 

 Dondra Head, the extreme southern point of India, and its chief Port is 

 Point de GaUe, well known to all travellers by the Overland route as the 

 great central port of call for steamers. Language of the most glowing and 

 poetical description has been used to describe the rich Oriental sceneiy and 

 the beautiful vegetation which here bursts on the view of ' Overland ' pas- 

 sengers from England, — scenery and vegetation rendered still more attrac- 

 tive by a lively recollection of the hot, sterile lava-rocks of Aden. The 



