362 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1888. 
extent of upwards of £40,000, in that period. A 
startling commentary on the neglect of those gifts of 
Providence from the intelligent appreciation of which so 
much was expected, and, sad to say, so little has been 
realised. The fact speaks tor itself ; it needs no marker. 
Of tobacco there is none ; of fibre but little exported. 
Both articles ought to figure largely in illustration of 
the material wealth of production of Fiji. Some hopes 
are held out of the former being grown and manufac- 
tured under skilled supervision, and when that arrives 
a prospect of success in the industry may be fairly 
looked for. This colony ought to produce as fine a 
leaf as can be found anywhere. It has been proved 
that it can do so, and knowledge and euterpii.-e alone 
are wanting in order to secure the advantages of the 
growth. Fibre, in which the country abounds, shows a 
steady retrogression in place of natural increase. It has 
dwindled with lamentable regularity from 94 tons, 
valued at £1,031 in 1884, to 44 tons, estimated at 
JS347 in 1887. A sad but emphatic commentary on the 
neglect of an article, the material of which is at every 
man's door and is, in many cases, a pest. 
That it might be made a means to compe- 
tence, if not of absolute wealth, troubles nobody. The 
machinery necessary to utilise the raw material is cheap 
and its manipulation easy. Experience has demon- 
strated that the article can be manufactured ; the falling 
off in the export has therefore to be accounted for. 
If from these we turn to other matters, we find that 
with splendid pasturage and any amount of cattle, 
Fiji imported, during last year, butter valued at £2,281. 
With her seas, rivers and bays swarming with fish, she 
sent out for her consumption of that article in the same 
period, the sum of £1,758; with fruits, rotting for 
want of being gathered, and with sugar with which to 
utilize them growing on every hand, her bill in 1887 
for jams and jellies amounted to £519 ; with an esti- 
mated export of tea for this year of upwards of 53 tons, 
she in the last twelvemonths, brought in about £1,150 
worth of that article ; and so on and so on, until repeti- 
tion becomes wearisome. 
In 1874, what did Sir Hercules say with respect 
to these. His words contain volumes of truth ; will 
Fiji never profit thereby ? His utterances of that day 
apply as well now and were to this effect : — 
" All that is needed in order to utilise these vast 
natural advantages to the utmost is to seek to facilitate 
production ; to increase the prosperity of those who 
labour, by cheapening the means of living ; and to 
multiply commercial relations — giving to other countries 
of the superabundance with which Providence has 
blessed this, and taking from them in return what 
we ourselves are unable to supply — bearing in mind, 
as one of our greatest poets has so graphically ex- 
pressed — 
" The band of commerce was designed 
To associate all the branches of mankind ; 
And if a boundless plenty be the robe, 
Trade is the golden girdle of the globe ; 
Wise to promote whatever end He means, 
God opens fruitful Nature's various scenes ; 
Each climate needs what other climes produce, 
And offers something for the general use." 
It is by acting up to the great principle inculcated 
in. hose lines — the principle of commercial associa- 
tion as distinguished from commercial isolation — that 
every portion of this Colony will attain the position 
she is qualified to occupy. 
The country possesses almost boundless natural re- 
sources which require but to he developed. The true 
policy under these conditions must be to loosen every 
band that hampers industry — that interferes with 
free exchange — so as to lessen the cost of production; 
to extend our markets and by uumistakeable ex- 
position of the store of indigenous wealth with 
which we are blessed, to attract capital and popu- 
lation to our shores. When, when, will fact illus- 
trate the truth of this? 
The new feature in the above article in the Mji 
Times (by a new editor) is that the Government 
and its land and labour policy are not denounced 
as entirely responsible for the absence of enterprise 
and progress described. 
A VISIT TO THK NEGOMBO D1ST1UCT : 
THE GREAT CINNAMON EEGION OF CEYLON RE- VISITED 
AFTER HALF- A- CENTURY- — THE CINNAMON TRADE — 
THE BASE LINE — REMINISCENCES OF THE " DAYS OK 
OLD " — THE CEYLON CROCODILES — A NOVEL MANURK 
FOR COCONUT TREES — VARIETIES OF CINNAMON. 
Goluapoicuna, Kadirana, Oct. 23rd, 1888. 
A period of well-nigh half-a-century has elapsed 
since I first made acquaintance with this the great 
cinnamon region of Ceylon. Poor Wm. Ferguson 
was then commencing his career in Ceylon as a 
Sub-Assistant Surveyor, and was taking part in 
the operations preliminary to the sale by Govern- 
ment of its cinnamon plantations and the final 
abandonment of the once profitable trade and mono- 
poly in the spice. Our Dutch neighbours in Java 
had gone far enough in experiments to show that 
Ceylon had no natural monopoly in the growth 
of cinnamon, although then and still, as in the 
case of plumbago, it possesses a monopoly of the 
best and finest kinds. And so the decree had 
gone forth for the sale of the Gardens and the 
absorption of the Cinnamon Department in the 
general Service, although for yeara subsequently a 
revenue accrued to Government from exorbitant 
duties on the world-famed spice, which is supposed 
to add sweetness to the breezes which " blow soft 
o'er Ceylon's isle." Monopoly prices, heavy export 
duties, and I am sorry to be compelled to add, 
adequate profits on the private capital and industry 
embarked in the private enterprise of cultivating 
and preparing cinnamon, have long been mattera 
of the past, — the long ago,— the ancient timed 
which many think were better than these. In 
those times I made the acquaintance of " the 
base line" which would be undervalued only by 
the class described by; Sydney Smith as capable of 
" speaking irreverently of the equator." We saw 
the towers too, which are not only to be repaired 
but to be raised, each of the two, by 30 feet of 
additional height. They will then, I suppose, 
be more useful than ever before as aids to a 
strictly correct trigonometrical survey of the island, 
to become the basis of detailed cadastral surveys. 
At the time of which I write the Government cinna- 
mon department and the special importance of the 
Mahabadda were not mere traditions. Walbeoff, 
the head of the department, had been killed by being 
thrown against a tree while riding, but the Baje- 
pakses, name inseparably connected with our special 
spice staple, were in full force, and I suppose it 
was the uncle of the benevolent old Sampson whom 
I met on the occasion of my visit, when I was 
a black-haired, red-cheeked lad, instead of an old 
man " withered at the top" as my good friend Dr. 
Elliott used to say of grey hair. Mr. Walbeoff had 
been wont to hold Court and administer justice in 
the building set on a cabook-hill whence I now 
write, while Waring's and Walker's bungalows 
were household words. The Walker referred to, 
whoee bungalow was at Colombo, was uncle to Sir 
E. Noel Walker as well as to Mr. John Marsh. 
With the ignorance of short acquaintance with 
the country and the natural impetuosity of youth, 
my brother and I thought it well — after a long 
walk through the laurel-like fields, during which 
we shot a " jungle pheasant," popularly " jungle 
crow," but scientifically the species of Indian 
cuckoo which shouts " Ouk 1 ouk !" and which 
made a very tough curry, — to have a bath in a 
' deep pool of the Mutwardiya river. While dashing 
and splashing about in the water, I was surprised 
to see what I took for dark-coloured logs of timber, 
bobbing up and down in the water. It turned out 
that we had been bathing in the midst of a perfect 
shoal of gavials. They did not attack us, and I 
have never heard of any human being falling 
