158 ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 



the garden, and so treated — with elephant manure, among 

 other things — as in two years' time quite to change their 

 character. Such pineapples were never seen here before ; 

 finer there could not be. They attained the height of ten 

 and eleven inches, and were proportionately large round, 

 with the filmiest rind and a honey-like sweetness and 

 aroma. 



But for every one that we got for ourselves the monkeys 

 got many, though they did not wait for any such details 

 as ripening, wrenching the fruit off as soon as there was an 

 inch or two of growth. At first we tried protecting with 

 matting, but the monkeys saw the reason, and twisted all 

 off together. Then we had a large wired enclosure made, 

 and within it the pines came to exquisite fruition. We used 

 to think we cemented a friendship or two by reason of those 

 pines ! 



Guavas, too, were especially fine and abundant. It is 

 impossible to describe a flavour accurately — no fruit is 

 exactly like another — but in texture of peel and flesh a 

 guava somewhat resembles a pear ; it is rather rough in 

 grain, too, like some pears are ; the colour varies from pale 

 or deep pink to yellow ; the same tree will bear slightly 

 different coloured fruit, the size of a lemon and oval in shape 

 when of a good kind. In all directions round Manantavadi 

 were numerous abandoned coffee estates, and in past times 

 these had been planted up with good graft guava trees, 

 which went on bearing, the fruit being free to all. In some 

 places they had absolutely run wild, their quality scarcely 

 deteriorating at all, and the ground would in season be 

 strewn with the lovely fruit, on which animals feasted 

 unheeded, for the people had tired of it. No one was 

 enterprising enough to start a guava- jelly factory, or their 

 fortunes would have been made. To me the fragrance 

 of an English petunia blossom is exactly like that of a ripe 

 guava ; and I have heard others say the same. 



