106 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. [PART I. 



Cocculus cordifolius, the " rasa-kindu " of the Singhalese, 

 a medicinal plant which produces the guluncha of Bengal. 

 It is largely cultivated in Ceylon, and when it has 

 acquired the diameter of half an inch, it is not unusual 

 for the natives to cut from the main stem a portion of 

 from twenty to thirty feet in length, leaving the 

 dissevered plant suspended from the branches of the 

 tree which sustained it. The amputation naturally 

 serves for a time to check its growth, but presently 

 small rootlets, not thicker than a pack-thread, are seen 

 shooting downwards from the wounded end; these 

 swing in the wind till, reaching the ground, they attach 

 themselves in the soil, and form new stems, which in 

 turn, when sufficiently grown, are cut away and re- 

 placed by a subsequent growth. Such is its tenacity 

 of life, that when the Singhalese wish to grow the rasa- 

 kindu, they twist several yards of the stem into a coil . 

 of six or eight inches in diameter, and simply hang it 

 on the branch of a tree, where it speedily puts forth its 

 large heart-shaped leaves, and sends down its rootlets to 

 the earth. 



The ground too has its creepers, and some of them 

 very curious. The most remarkable are the ratans, 

 belonging to the Calamus genus of palms. Of these I 

 have seen a specimen 250 feet long and an inch in dia- 

 meter, without a single irregularity, and no appearance 

 of foliage other than the bunch of feathery leaves at the 

 extremity. 



The strength of these slender plants is so extreme, 

 that the natives employ them with striking success in 

 the formation of bridges across the water-courses and 

 ravines. One which crossed the falls of the Mahawelli- 

 ganga, in the Kotmalie range of hills, was constructed 

 with the scientific precision of an engineer's work. It 

 was entirely composed of the plant, called by the 

 natives the " Waywel," its extremities fastened to 

 living trees, on the opposite sides of the ravine, through 

 which a furious and otherwise impassable mountain 



