1{>2 COFFEE 



inhabitants, and possesses a soil of inexhaustible fertility, the 

 masses of colonial produce which it pours upon the market of 

 the world, cease to be matter of surprise ; nor can we wonder 

 at its yielding the Dutch treasury an annual surplus of more 

 than ten millions of florins, after all local expenses have been 

 paid. The annual production of coffee alone amounts to at least 

 150,000,000 pounds, which are almost exclusively exported to 

 Holland, and chiefly serve for the consumption of Grermany. 



Within the last forty years the progress of coffee cultivation 

 in Ceylon has been no less remarkable than its rapid extension 

 in Java or Brazil. Though the plant was found growing in thJ 

 island by the Portuguese, and is even supposed by some to 

 indigenous, yet it was only after the subjugation of the ancient? 

 kingdom of Kandy by the English in 1815, and the opening of 

 roads in the hill country, that it began to be cultivated on a more 

 extensive scale. The first upland plantation was formed about 

 1825 by Sir Edward Barnes, the energetic governor to whom 

 the colony is indebted for so many works of public utility ; and 

 as a concurrence of favourable circumstances — among others the 

 decline of production in the West Indies, and the increasing 

 consumption in England, in consequence of remissions of duty, 

 — rendered the moment propitious, his example was speedily 

 followed by a host of speculators, so that in an incredibly short 

 time the mountain-ranges in the centre of the island became 

 covered with plantations, and rows of coffee-trees began to bloom 

 upon the solitary hills around the very base of Adam's Peak. 



Thus coffee, formerly so unimportant, is now the chief produc- 

 tion of Ceylon ; its exportation having risen from 1,792,44? 

 pounds in 1827, to 67,453,680 pounds in 1857; and shoulc 

 prices in Europe continue remunerative, there is every reason tc 

 believe that in less than fifty years the produce will be trebled., 

 equalling or even surpassing that of Java. 



While the production of coffee has thus enormously increasec 

 in the above-mentioned countries, it has on the other banc 

 greatly declined in the West Indies. Thus Hayti, which pre- 

 vious to the negro rebellion in 1791 exported seventy-six mil 

 lions of pounds to France, at a time when coffee was mucl 

 dearer than at present, now produces less than one half tha 

 quantity, and is even distanced by Venezuela, which in 185,' 

 exported thirty-eight millions of pounds. 



