CHAF. III.] 



PLANTS OF THE HILLS. 



the sameness of the scenery is diversified by the grassy 

 patenas before alluded to *, which, in their aspect, though 

 not their extent, may be caUed the Savannahs of Ceylon. 

 Here peaches, cherries, and other European fruit trees, 

 grow freely ; but they become evergreens in this summer 

 climate, and, exhausted by perennial excitement, and de- 

 prived of their winter repose, they refuse to ripen their 

 fruit. 2 A similar failure was discovered in some European 

 vines, whichrWere cultivated at Jaffna ; but Mr. Dyke, 

 the government agent, in whose garden they grew, con- 

 ceiving that the activity of the plants might be equally 

 checked by exposing them to an extreme of warmth, as 

 by subjecting them to cold, tried, with perfect success, 

 the experiment of laying bare the roots in the strongest 

 heat of the sun. The result verified his conjecture. The 

 circulation of the sap was arrested, the vines obtained 

 the needful repose, and the grapes, which before had 

 fallen almost unformed from the tree, are now brought to 

 thorough maturity, though inferior in flavour to those 

 produced at home. 3 



The tea plant has been raised with complete success in 

 the hills on the estate of the Messrs. Worms, at Eoth- 



the wind is permitted to sigh; and the 

 effect is described as perfectly charm- 

 ing. Mr. Logan, who in 1847 visited 

 Naning, contiguous to the frontier of 

 the European settlement of Malacca, 

 on approaching the village of Kan- 

 dang, was surprised by hearing " the 

 most melodious sounds, some soft 

 and liquid like the notes of a flute, 

 and others deep and full like the 

 tones of an organ. They were 

 sometimes low, interrupted, or even 

 single, and presently they would 

 swell into a grand burst of mingled 

 melody. On drawing near to a 

 clump of trees, above the branches 

 of which waved a slender bamboo 

 about forty feet in height, he 

 found that the musical tones issued 

 from it, and were caused by the 

 breeze passing through perforations 

 in the stem. 'The instrument thus 

 formed is called by the natives 



the bulu perindu, or plaintive bam- 

 boo." Those which Mr. Logan saw 

 had a slit in each joint, so that each 

 stem possessed fourteen or twenty 



1 See ante, p. 24. 



2 The apple-tree in the Peradenia 

 Gardens seems not onlv to have be- 

 come an evergreen, but to have 

 changed its character in another par- 

 ticular; for it is found to send out 

 numerous runners under ground, 

 which continually rise into small 

 stems and form a growth of shrub- 

 like plants around the parent tree. 



3 An equally successful experi- 

 ment, to give the vine an artificial 

 winter by baring the roots, is re- 

 corded by Mr. BALLARD, of Bombay, 

 in the Transactions of the A(/ric. and 

 I frt t<: Society of India, under date 

 24th May, 1824. Calcutta. 1850. 

 Vol. i. p. 96. 



