Feb. 1, 1901.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
513 
the really enormous increase that the export of 
tea from Ceylon to Russia has undergone in one, year. 
In 1897 that export amounted to 439,349 pounds 
and in 189S 2,714,005 pounds: thus nearly seven-fold. 
This in truth agrees with what I learned four 
years ago more than onoe in Russia, and what has 
since been repeatedly asseried to me by Russian 
visitors here, namely, that the non-Chinese teas 
will find a great sale ia Russia. 
Before concluding these short incidential remarks 
regarding the tea culture, there is yet another ques- 
tion that deserves to be touched upon, even though 
it be with a single word. It is that of libor. The 
person engaged in agriculture in Ceylon does not 
find as do his colleagues in Java (excepting the em- 
ployment of Madurese labor in East Java) the need- 
ful laborers amongst the population of the island 
itself. As a rule there is no Sinhalese labor, but 
Tamil coolies obtained from British India, from the 
Madras Residency.* According to what I was told, 
these coolies are mostly easily to be obtained, at 
wages of .30 to 37 (as maximum) rupee-cents per diem. 
If the fact that the indigenous population counts 
for nothing or at any rate lor very little as a 
labor force, does not seem to cause the European 
agriculturists very much trouble and loss, it must 
certainly be without the condition of injury to the 
country itself. The Tamil coolies however — not to 
be confounded with the Tamil families living in 
Ceylon (comprising some 440,000 souls) in the north 
in and near Jaffna, and in the east in the region 
of Batticaloa — do not remain in Ceylon, but 
generally return after a pretty short time to their 
nouses in British-India. The earned and saved 
Bums of money, reaching, as I was assured to pretty 
considerable amounts, are carried home with them, 
or are often sent from time to time by post. All 
this money leaves the country and thus does not 
contribute to the increase of the welfare of the 
population in the districts where the European 
agriculturists carry on their occupation. This evil, 
there unavoidable, is not to be reckon.^d too 
lightly ; let one only think — to make a comparison 
with an equal tea-growing region of Java — of the 
evident welfare in our villages in the Preanger 
Regencies where the people work on and for the 
tea estates. 
Between the Nanuoya station and the small 
stopping place situated at the highest point of the 
railway (6,300 feet) the land under cultivation be- 
comes steadily more infrequent and the natural 
vegetation in direct ratio comes more and more, 
and at last entirely, into the foreground. And it is 
in that sphere that the great botanic — or more 
strictly speaking vegetogeographical— peculiarity 
falls to be noticed to which reference was made 
above. 
The mountain slopes are only partially covered 
with jungle. Among the woods, forming lavga 
complexes and strips, and bordering immediately 
upon them, one sees grass-covered lands, which 
either form great bays in the jungles, or in the 
fashion of broad passages separate extensive forest- 
complexes from each other to assume elsewhere 
the character of enormous accidented grass-fields. 
These lands, whose prominent characteristic ia, 
whatever in addition their form may be, that they 
are so remarkably sharply divided from the 
neighbouring pieces covered with jungle, bear the 
name of " patana." Looking at a distance like 
rather short-kept lawns, these patanas are in reality 
formed of pretty high and coarse grasses (species : 
Androp ogon, Arthistiria, Pollinia, Oarnotia, Arundi 
nella), amongst which occurs a peculiar flora, con- 
sisting of pretty numerous ground-orchids, im- 
mortelles {AnapJialis and Helichrysum), gentians, 
wahlenbergias, &c ; besides some low-growing 
bushes of the families of the Leguminosae, Rubi- 
aceae and melastomaceae, As a further peculiarity 
* 8ic.-D.F, 
of these patanas it is to be noted, that, at least iu 
the high-lying ones, literally only 07ie variety of 
tree occurs, namely Rhododendron arhortum. Very 
scattered in the large grass-plains, standing alone, 
these rather low trees with short, mostly crooked, 
branches have as such no handsome appearance ; 
covered, however, with masses of large blood-red 
rhododendron flowers they form so many brilliant 
bouquets standing out gloriously from the mono- 
tonous brown- green under-layer of grass. 
The whole landscape in the high patana region 
is so singular and the demarcation between grasi 
and jungle so abrupt and always so sharp, that 
one can hardly believe that one sees before one 
the work of nature alone, and one is constantly 
inclined to ask who can have been the genial 
designer, who had the audacity to cover th« 
mountain slopes and tops with a park on a gigantic 
scale, wherein woods and enormous joefottsirs [lawns] 
leaving open bold perspectives, alternate with one 
another. 
Rightly says Trimen, in his article already quoted 
from on the flora of Ceylon; "A curious pheno- 
menon, which strikes every traveller in the moun- 
tains, is the very abrupt line of demarcation bet- 
the patana and the forest ; so sharply defined ia 
this that it is hard to persuade oneself that nature 
alone has had a hand in it. The explanation 
appears to be that in the course of vast ages a 
perfect equilibrium between the two floras has been 
arrived at, so that now neither can encroach on 
the other : the patana plants are unable to exist 
in the dense shady forest, whilst the seeds of the 
forest trees never get a chance even of germination 
in the closely occupied grass-land, so far as can be 
observed, this balance is now maintained without 
change." 
That the equilibrium is formed and at the same 
time, so far as one can judge, maintains itself 
unaltered is a fact that is indisputable. Neverthe- 
less it is quite enigmatic how it has arisen and 
also to a certain extent how it endures. Especially 
is this an enigma, for the time being totally 
insoluble as it appears to me, since the patanas 
certainly are found rather on the dry side of the 
mountain range, but by no means exclusively. On 
the wet side of the mountains they also occupy 
large stretches; it was just there that we saw them 
for the first time, going up from Nanuoya. In 
this relative independence of the climatological 
conditions the patanas differ from the llanos of 
Venezuela and the savannas of Guiana, to which 
they otherwise have a resemblance. 
It was certainly wet enough at 6,000 feet eleva- 
tion. Clouds, mist and rain all together, caused cold 
shivers, to run through one's limljs. 
But, in the strict sense, as by the stroke of a 
magician's wand, all was changed. 
A few moments after one has passed the highest 
point, one comes through a long tunnel, followed 
by several smaller ones, and suddenly one is in dry 
Ceylon. By the landscape, by the uniform tints, by 
the feeling, in short by everything one recognizes, 
that one has been at once transported into a dis- 
trict as dry as a cork. And that, when only half- 
an-hour previously one's teeth were chattering. 
This extremely remarkable contrast also forms not 
one of the least of the surprises in which this 
journey so rich. 
The brief details given above, having reference to 
the chief causes that distinguish the climate of 
Cfeylon, makes the rapid transition intelligible ; 
only a personal view, however, can convey a just 
conception of the striking effect of this unprecedented 
change of climate between the two sides of one and 
the same mountain range. 
Before the falling of the evening we reached the 
terminal station Baudarawela; under the impression 
of the selfsame panorama formed by hundreds of 
bills and mountain tops, all shining in those uni- 
form red tints peculiar to arid and dry regions 9| 
