MANAGEMENT OF COFFEE PLANTATIONS 195 



shade the tender coffee plants; but oftener the rows are made 

 1 ( ) alternate with those of the sheltering dadab. Thus a new and 

 luxuriant grove, animated by insects, birds, and a number of 

 ,sMiall four-footed animals, replaces the old thicket of nature's 

 planting. Straight paths, kept carefully clean, lead through the 

 dense dark-green shrubbery, under whose thick cover the wild 

 t'ock hastily retreats when surprised by the wanderer. When 

 the trees are in flower, the branches seem to bend under a 

 ^\ eight of snow, from the number of dazzling white blossoms, 

 A\ hich form a most pleasing contrast to the dark lustrous foliage, 

 wliile high above the dadabs extend their airy crowns, whose 

 lio-ht green leaves are agreeably interspersed with flowers of a 

 Itrilliant red. A few months later, when the frviits are ripening 

 into carmine, a scene of the most bustling animation ensues, for 

 old and young are busily employed in plucking the swelling 

 1)erries, and hurrying with filled baskets to the nearest pulping 

 luill. At this time, the whitish excrements of the musang, a 

 small gray long-tailed marten-like rodent, are frequently found 

 upon the ground, consisting wholly of agglutinated, but other- 

 wise undamaged coffee-beans. The musang is extremely fond 

 of the ripe berries, whose pulp dissolves in its stomach, while 

 tlie undigested beans furnish the best coffee, as the fastidious 

 animal selects none but the choicest fruit. For this reason the 

 musang coffee is carefully collected, and sold at a higher price 

 to wealthy Dutch residents. 



In Ceylon the native woodmen are singularly expert in felling 

 forest trees preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. Turning 

 to advantage the luxuriance of tropical vegetation, which lashes 

 together whole forests by a maze of interlacing climbers as firm 

 and massy as the cables of a line-of-battle ship, their practice in 

 steep and mountainous places is to cut half-way through each 

 stem in succession, till an area of some acres in extent is pre- 

 pared for the final overthrow. They then sever some tall group 

 on the eminence, and allow it in its descent to precipitate itself 

 on those below, when the whole expanse is in one moment 

 brought headlong to the ground, the falling timber forcing 

 down those beneath it by its weight, and dragging those behind 

 to which it is harnessed. The crash occasioned by this startling 

 operation is so loud, that it is audible for two or three miles in 

 tlie clear and still atmosphere of the hills. 



