802 ON THE FLORA OF CEYLON. 
less than a quarter of the whole country. It is here that are situated 
the ports of Colombo and of Galle, the beautifully-placed town o: 
Kandy, the sacred mountain of Adam’s Peak, the sanitarium of 
Nuwara Eliya coe the hill-districts where the European i 
have their hou and the whole railway-system. This is the 
neh of the English capitalist and planter, of the poet a the 
tourist; it is a rich sunny land, with perpetual ne unfai 
streams, and a teeming popula big: to whom life is ea: Nature 
untiful. But there is another and a larger Ceylon, “Tittle thought 
about in ro ear but comprising the whole north and east, an 
parts of the centre and west of the island. There the country is 
thickly covered with sombre jungle, population is sparse, and culti- 
vation is in most parts scanty and dependent on artificial irrigation. 
extend across the whole island that the remains of the hcaioak cities of 
the past are situated, whose gigantic and imposin half-burie 
sportsman, naturalist, or antiquarian, visit this country, but in an 
else account of the island it soko receive due consideration. 
g differences in these two Ceylons are due entirely to 
climate, aia especially to rainfall. The distribution of rainfall, as 
shown by the number of inches falling annually, is exhibited in the 
map on the wall by various shades of blue coloration, and you must 
at once be struck with the marked inj coe of the 8. W. esr 
of which I have spoken, over the rest of the island. 
explained by the conformation of the country ; the lofty Miler: 
escarpment of the mountain mass rises to over 7000 ft. (and there 
influence on fertility, especially in tropical countries; and in this 
favoured _ there are e rarely any long — — “a A 
n the remainder of the island the case is widely different ; the 
south-west monsoon, which so blesses the gcidcotieapap Pp f 
Ceylon, is now emptied of its moistur ure, and es a 
e 
ay 
— the Western Province and the hill-country are saturated, a 
ng drought prevails seh ig and usually atari until 
of the N.E. Octob This wind brings 
oo) rain we die whole island ; eae is no escarpment of the mountain 
plateau in in that direction, and during the three or four months that 
