60 EVERYDAY LIFE ON A 



light cane, with a head well thatched with palm 

 leaves. It was much after the pattern of the 

 old sedan chair, excepting that it was open in- 

 stead of being closed in. The road by which 

 we went, was simply a mountain path, leading 

 first through groves of palms, the gigantic white 

 plumes of the blossom of the talipot palm out- 

 topping all others ; then we went through paddy 

 fields, forded an unbridged river where I 

 expected momentarily to be deposited in the 

 water, and then up the side of a mountain gorge, 

 where huge boulders encroached on the already 

 narrow pathway, on the lower side of which, 

 without the slightest parapet, was a precipice of 

 several hundred feet. One false step and, for me, 

 there would have been an end of all things. But 

 the false step never comes, the native with his 

 bare feet, and prehensile toes is as surefooted as 

 a goat or a monkey. 



At last we arrived at our destination, a 

 bungalow literally covered with Cape jessamine, 

 bougainvillea, thumbergia and other lovely 

 creepers, built on a small plateau overhanging 

 the gorge. Every inch of plateau has been 

 turned into garden, or ornamental shrubbery, 

 and in the cooler mountain air many English 

 flowers and vegetables flourished that would 

 pine and die in the hot low country. One hears 

 the distant roar of the mountain torrent which 

 works the machinery of the tea factory below, 



