Jan, 1, 190L] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
4^1 
is the contrast, when one comes through one of 
the many tunnels near the terminal station, Ban- 
darawela, where the drier northern portion of 
the isL^nd begins. In place of jungle and under- 
growth one suddenly stes the hills covered with 
clumps of short grass, which however does not 
appear to be suited for cattle fodder. 
The Botanic Garden at Peradeniya is very fiae, 
but not what the garden at Buitenzorg is ; the 
European staiF then consisted of only two per- 
sons and a third was just expected. The group- 
ing of the plants, it is true, appears at first sight 
very picturesque; but when one looks for a parti- 
cular plant, one sees at once the great advant- 
age of the systematic riethod of planting at 
Buitenzorg. In addition the guides by their 
English-Sinhalese pronunciation of the Latin 
names makes them even more unintelligible than 
the Javanese mandoer, * who translated cinchona 
calisaya into High Javanese as "Icina lepen koelo." 
Very beautiful in blossom certainly stood Macf- 
nolia sp. (Himalaya) with large white flowers, 
which should certainly suit the taste of our 
Javanlings [Jawwfjes] ; further Poinciana regia, 
the flamboyant of Madagascar, a handsome blue' 
flowered shrub, as also the " cannonball tree," 
so named from its shot-round fruits, &c., &c. 
Population and Labor. — The indigenous 
population of Ceylon are the Sinhalese, who ap- 
pear to have just as little inclination tor manual 
labor as for instance the Malays of Sumatra. For 
the work on the plantations and in the factories 
therefore Tamil coolies from British India are 
generally imported. Tha pay per day is usually 
for men 35 and for women 25 rupee-cents, equal 
at the ruling rate of exchange to about 30 and 
20 of our cents. The coolies have frequently / 50 
and more of advance, may leave the estate, but 
are then obliged to 'epay the advance, unless 
according to a common custom it be taken over 
by another estate. 
As may easily be understood, it is in the 
highest degree difficult to exercise control over 
them. Their skill and industry appear to be 
about the same as those of our Javanese nnd 
Sundanese. The planters generally converse with 
the coolies in the Tamil language, but to a 
strange it sounds unpleasant with an English 
accent. One finds everywhere however natives, 
and especially Sinhalese, who know some Eng- 
lish, more even than in Java, who understand 
Malay, which is certainly an advantage for 
tourists. 
The people are more lomquacious, more'bust- 
Hng and dirtier, but also more brutal— which 
generally see, to go together— than our Javanlings. 
Means of Transport and Gattlk-Breeding. 
— The railway transport is both for persons and 
goods considerably cheaper and consequently the 
night trains also more comfortable than in Java. 
On the other hand, Ceylon has railways and 
tramways only in the industrial portion. The 
postal service appears to be cheaper and better 
managed than in Netherlands India, but of tele- 
phone communication, even in the towns, there is 
hardly any- In the principal places and at the 
hotels one can hire carriages, drawn by big 
Australian or Persian horses, pretty much for the 
same prices as in Java. There are also jinrik- 
shas drawn by Tamil coolies. The typical 
method of transport for persons in Ceylon is how- 
ever the little carts drawn by dwarf-oxen. 
* Jav., overseer. 
One sees big deelemaiii * carts with two oxen, 
but many more hackeries [karretj'es] and ban- 
dies with one ox in front, which go almost 
as quickly as horses. The transport carts 
are drawn by large Bengal oxen eviilently im- 
ported ; on account of the rocky ground all the 
horses, as well as sappies t have iron shoes. A 
singular custom of the carter-; is to brand entire 
designs on the beasts and often to furnish the 
horns with brass tips. It is sai<l that several 
planters have tried to breed horses, but the results 
were bad. All the horses bred there were small, 
weak and often albinos, which must probably be 
attributed to the bad food. The horses are fed 
with feed imported from Australia or with 
plently of gabbah\ and some locally grown grass ; 
the sappies with paddy straw, pressed cakes from 
the coconut oil mills and grass, when that is to 
be hat), which is often not tlie case. 
The roads are excellently traced and hardened 
with broken stone, but sometimes terribly narrow 
and the turns pretty sharp. It must have cost 
an amazing amount of work to cut the roads out 
of the rocks. An interesting and efficient means 
of transport is on many estates the "shoots"; 
these are cable lines of the very simplest con- 
struction for the hill transmission of produce and 
Hrewood. A steel rope of ^ to ^ English inch 
diameter is, preferably without any other sup- 
port, stretched to one post or more, often high 
above ravines and roads. On this the load is 
hung by a light pulley, or in the case of a very 
great incline simply by a hook, and then runs 
down by its own weight to be taken up below. 
The pulleys are then pulled up again by persons 
for further use. This method of transport is not 
used for fragile articles, but for fresh tea leaves, 
coffee, firewood, &c. Nothing can be sent up- 
hill by the " shuots "; for that purpose however 
I saw the well-known cable lines driven by water- 
power : the contrivance is however very expensive. 
The firm of Walker Sons & Co. have erected 
many " shoots " and cable lines. 
The fresh tea leaf is also transported in large 
baskets, proviued with divisions to prevent drying, 
and in open-worked sacks of coco yarn, which 
are lighter and stronger than gunny bags. 
Cultures. — One stands amazed at the energy 
with which our neishbours undertake their ex- 
periments in cultivation, and one also comes to 
the conviction that English capital must be much 
easier or stronger than Dutch, or otherwise it 
would have been impossible in Ceylon to have 
been able to go over completely and entirely 
• from coffee and cinchona to the cultivation of 
tea. One sees now and then indeed just as here 
and there in Java the "whole grocer's shop" 
•system carried out ; I saw, for instance, planted 
amongst each other— tea, cacao, Ara^Jian and 
Liuerian coffee, two varieties of caoutchouc, pepper, 
cinchona &c.; as a rule however only tea is 
l)hinted. 
Coffee. — This culture seems to have pretty 
well been done with ; at least I saw very little 
Arabian coffee left, and J^iberian coffee does not 
appear to do in Ceylon, which is probably chiefly 
due to the shallow soil. 
Cinchona I also found almost non-existent, 
and what I saw was of inferior variety. It 
"is true that there seems to have been a 
* I do not know what this means. 
"|- .]av. sapi, oxen, 
t Paddy? 
