PITH HELMETS. 281 



the Terai, the great malarious jungle district of which 

 we have already spoken. To give an idea of how 

 cheaply excellent things can be made in India, we 

 may just mention that this poor man used to charge 

 8 annas for one of these hats, but of late years has 

 risen his price to the enormous total of 12 annas, or 

 say about io^d. in British money at the present rate 

 of exchange, for which sum we lately got one from 

 him. The Sola Topee, * we may here remark, of 

 course means " a sola reed hat, " but this has been 

 corrupted by Europeans into Solar Topee, or " Sun 

 hat " in mongrel English, and forms a good specimen 

 of the absurd changes and corruptions often wrought 

 in words and languages, which, becoming sanctioned 

 by time and fashion, at last become recognized figures 

 of speech, of \vhich the original source is forgotten. 



Another remarkable group of great grasses are the 

 Saccharines, or sugar-producing plants, which flourish 

 wherever damp soil and moist atmosphere are combined 

 with a high temperature. Sugar is produced by a 

 great variety of plants and grasses, and some palms, 

 but of these, we need hardly say, the sugar cane 

 (Saccharum Officinarum] is the leading and most 

 valuable example. Its average height is about nine 

 feet, but sugar canes are sometimes fifteen feet high, 

 and nearly two inches in diameter. To the European 

 palate the pith, when chewed, has a very sweet but 

 rather sickly taste, though many natives in the sugar 

 districts seem very fond of it. 



Originally a plant of the old world, the sugar cane 

 was cultivated in China before the historical era; and 



* " Topee " is Hindi for "hat," and "Sola" is the Indian name of 

 he reed. 



