^ MONTHLY. Po 
Vol. XVIII 
COLOMBO, DECEMBER 1st, 1898. 
[No. 6. 
"PIONEERS OF THE PLANTING ENTERPRISE IN CEYLON." 
(Third Scries.) 
THOMAS WOOD, 
PLANTER PIONEER IN UVA FOR MANY YEARS :— 1847-1880 ; MANAGER 
OF THE RICHEST COFFEE PLANTATION IN CEYLON. 
[We are indebted to an old friend and partner of 
Mr. Wood, of many years' standing in Uva, for 
the following account of the Spring Valley patri- 
arch. We visited the district and was the guest 
of Mr. Wood in 1865 when Spring Valley estate 
was in its prime, before pas&iug from Mr. 
Bannatine to the Company formed by Mr. 
John Brown. Mousagalla was just being opened 
in coflee. There was then no baker in all Uva and 
Mr. Wood had seen no wheat bread for months, 
living on rice ftakes and tinned biscuits. We 
found Mr. Wood to be still active and hearty, 
full of his recent visit to Nuwara Eliya to 
welcome Mr. Bannatine — both meeting as old men 
when they had parted in their early prime. 
But we must not go on, but rather leave our 
friend to tell his very ample tale.— Ed. T.A.] 
HE SUBJECT OF THIS NOTICE 
takes us to Guvah — now spelt 
" Uva," the principal town 
being Badulla— of which the 
surrounding mountains and 
valleys, hills and dales, villa- 
ges and lields are amongst 
the most lovely and charming 
in this most beautiful land. I " surveyed " it 
all again only the other day after many years of 
absence, from the new liailway line, with all 
the same surprise and delight that its first view 
aftbrded me now so very long ago. There stands 
Namunukula majestic and alone, with its many 
peaks pointing everlastingly to the skies, its flank- 
ing ridges far outspread, guarding the valleys 
and streams and slopes with which my feet were; 
so familiar. These remain, but man does not. 
He flourishes for a day, seemingly the lord of 
it all, and then dies, and the place that knew 
him knows him no more for ever ; but the 
everlasting hills still stand watching the mortal 
procession, and seem to laugh at man's ephe- 
meral existence and transitory rule. T/iert 
are the haunts of my early years; but where 
are the men with whom I lived and worked, and 
amongst whom my early lot was cast? Of them 
only one remains, and he is preening his wings 
for flight ; and I who look in from afar sigh 
and think of the little churchyard under the 
shadow of that great hill where such a goodly 
company of my old neighbours sleep their last 
long sleep together. But let me for a brief space 
cause my old friend to live again in these line.«, 
so that the reailer may know the sort of man 
he was, the place he filled, and the r6le he played. 
Thomas Wood, 
the subject of this brief sketch, was for many 
years one of the most conspicuous figures la 
