186 Miscellaneous Notices from the Island of Ceylon. 
10. Miscellaneous Notices from the Island of Ceylon. 
Extract from a letteraddressed toa gentleman in Middle- 
bury, Vt. by the Rev. Mrmon Winstow, American 
Missionary on the Island of Ceylenea: — 
‘In Jaffna, there are no minerals. One entire plain, 
raised a few feet above the bed of the sea ;—the soil, i 
many places, made up of decomposed sea-shells and coarse 
coraline, and all evidently of a secondary formation, cov- 
ering an extensive substratum of the coral rock, forms. the 
District of Jaffua. The industry of the. inhabitants has 
converted this originally barren spot into an almost con- 
tinued garden, giving sustenance, from an extent of about 
thirty miles by ten, on an average, to about two hundred 
thousand inhabitants. The priveipal articles,raised are, 
rice, horse-geam, two or three inferior kinds of dry grain, 
unknown in America, yams, sweet potatoes, small onions, 
small beans, (or an inferior kind of pulse, between the 
bean and pea.) and several culinary plants, used by the 
natives in food, unknown in northern latitudes. 
“he fruits are mangoes, plantains, bananas, bread fruit, 
jack fruit, oranges, limes, citrons, figs, grapes, (the two lat- 
‘ter seldom cultivated, but tolerably good when they are,) 
dates, promegranates, and, indeed, in greater or less abun- 
dance, most tropical productions. Water-melons and cu- 
cumbers grow well here, and most garden vegetables may 
be cultivated, but only by having European seeds; and 
then they do not become very good. In the interior, the 
climate is much better for gardening. Here, there 1s al- 
most a constant droaght from January to October, and the 
inhabitants ere obliged to water all their gardens and fields 
from tanks and wells. Cinnamon is found only in the in- 
terior, and south of the Island; where also coffee, pepper 
and colton are grown. ‘Tobacco is the staple article of 
export from Jaffna; which does not raise a sufficient quan- 
tity of rice to support the inhabitants. The cocoa-nut, 
and smat! fan palm, called here palmyra, give much suste- 
nance to the natives the latter, particularly, affording 
food to the poorer class, nearly ha!f the vear. 
