70 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 22, ISH. 
I could put my hand on some of these washed-out specimens of 
vegetation which have travelled the midlands in search of flori- 
cultural honours for many years; but no one would find his 
enthusiasm aroused by them who has seen the Bougainvillea ramp 
and climb 40 or 50 feet high among the trees of an eastern garden, 
and droop down again in festoons and cascades of rich purple to the 
ground. 
But I must hasten on, much as I could say of the beauties of 
this spot, for we have an invitation to spend a fortnight with 
friends at their Tea estate 5000 feet above sea level, up among the 
hills 100 miles away, and we gladly fly from the oppressive heat of 
Colombo, and take the train at seven next morning for the upland 
station of Talawakele. For the first hour the line runs nearly 
level, passing at first through groves of Cocoa and Areca Palms, 
with little settlements of native houses dotted here and there in 
cleared spots, each with its cluster of Plantains close by, while 
ever and again great open spaces of Paddy of intense vivid green 
extend on either side of the line, in various stages of growth, the 
young crops rising from perfectly level ground, which is kept 
flooded by an elaborate system of irrigation. Then the road 
plunges into dense forest and jungle, where creepers climb like 
gigantic snakes round the trunks and hang in superb curves from 
branch to branch of immense forest trees, while the dense under¬ 
growth is relieved by many coloured flowers, of to us unknown 
kinds, and frequent pools by the side of the line are bright with 
large pink and white Water Lilies. We are now in the tract, 
which, beautiful as it is, is too truly known by the terrible name 
of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, for here, during the con¬ 
struction of the line, 50,000 natives and every European super¬ 
intendent employed on the work died of malarial fever. 
Then it begins to rise in a long steep incline till it reaches, one 
after another, vantage points commanding extensive views over 
jungle and forest, with foregrounds of superb trees, and every yard 
between them filled in with strange shrubs and flowering plants 
struggling one with another for space to grow in ; still the road 
climbs and winds in vast curves up the mountain sides. At some 
points the way is scooped out of the face of the rock, while from 
the window of your carriage on the opposite side you look sheer 
down 800 or 1000 feet into the valley beneath. The glory of the 
ride, perhaps, culminates at the far-famed Kaduganaga Pass, but 
it is difficult to give the palm to any particular spot, when for 
fifty miles there is a continuous series of such views of everlasting 
grandeur over hill and valley with distant sight of Adam’s Peak 
and the other great mountains of Ceylon, till the brain is almost 
bewildered with the beauty and wonder of the scene. As you 
reach an elevation of 3000 or 4000 feet Tree Ferns begin to show 
themselves, and the bright flowers of Lantanas form a conspicuous 
element in the vegetation of the middle region becomes scarcer. 
At last, after some hours, a great and sudden change comes over 
the scene, for we have arrived at the zone suitable for the culti¬ 
vation of Tea and Coffee and Cinchona, and here man has done 
his utmost to efface the consummate natural beauty of this fair 
land, for forest and brushwood have been alike ruthlessly swept 
from the face of the ground for miles in every direction, a suicidal 
policy for which the unfortunate planter is now paying a heavy 
and twofold penalty in the dearth of shelter and of firewood— 
dearth which he is now struggling to undo by planting Eucalyptus 
and Acacia trees of quick growth. At Talawakele station we left 
the train, and coolies took charge of our boxes, which they carried 
on their heads across country, reaching the house of our friends 
almost as soon as we did. For ourselves, a drive of sixteen miles 
in a ramshackle trap drawn by two emaciated horses landed us at 
the foot of the hill, behind which the bungalow of our hosts was 
situated, and half an hour’s ride on two of their sure-footed ponies 
landed us at their door, 5000 feet above sea. 
A well arranged programme of excursions through the island 
was defeated by unseasonable weather, the tail end of a cyclone 
in the Bay of Bengal, which we should have encountered had we 
gone straight on to Calcutta, so we spent much of our time in 
rambles near at hand. Fortunately the estate is the last in the 
district, and is skirted on the larger part of its circumference by 
still primeval jungle. Gigantic Bamboo Grasses, 40 feet high, are 
the most conspicuous element in the vegetation, and it is quite 
impossible to exaggerate the perfect gracefulness of their curves, 
or the delicacy of their feathery foliage. Equisetums 2 or 3 feet high, 
and resembling in their symmetry the most perfectly grown 
Deodara, abound, as well as many smaller species of this genus, 
and Selaginellas. So also do Ferns of a great number of species, 
and our hostess showed us a fine collection of 100 sorts all gathered 
within a small radius from the house. Tree Ferns, some 15 feet 
in height, but yet babies beside the giants of the Himalayas, are 
scattered through the brush and along the sides of streams, and the 
lovely Gleichenia dichotoma forms dense masses in the ravines, 
through which one might carve a tunnel, and yet have a thick 
shelter overhead. But in this lovely climate, where the range of 
the thermometer all the year round is seldom more than from 56“ 
to 75° day or night, you see side by side plants which we cultivate- 
in the stove, the greenhouse, and the open air. In our host’s 
garden are Poinsettias 9 or 10 feet high, big bushes of Gardenia, 
and scarlet and rose coloured Hibiscus luxuriating alongside of 
Fuchsias, Dahlias, and Roses ; Euphorbia jacquinisefolia beside 
Vinca major, Clerodendron Balfourianum in juxtaposition with 
blue Lobelia, and Phajus bicolor springing from a bank of English 
Violets. 
One excursion we took to Horton Plains, where there is the 
highest inhabited rest house in Ceylon, was of special botanical 
interest. Our ladies were carried in Sedan chairs, my host and I 
rode, most of the way through jungle through which the vertical 
sun scarcely penetrates, with here and there a lane torn through 
the brush by roving elephants. Balsams abound here, from tiny 
species a few inches high to large bushes. An amazing profusion 
of Melastomaceous plants and many varieties of 'Tradescantia. 
fringe the path, and a delicate white Thunbergia trails 
over the banks among innumerable Ferns and Selaginellas. A 
remarkable Arum is a striking feature, bearing flowers not unlike- 
those of our A. maculatum, but with palmate leaves like those of 
a Horse Chestnut. Here we had our first sight of Orchids growing^ 
on the tree trunks, but a small Dendrobe and a Coelogyne were the- 
only ones in bloom. Here and there the track emerges for a tim& 
on to a grassy knoll or Patua, and here a charming terrestrial 
Orchid, like an enlarged Pleione, and of delicate purple, expanded 
its abundant flowers among white Smilax and blue and purple 
Gentians, and many others unknown to us. On the extensive 
plateau at the top of the mountain grew a superb Hypericum of 
exquisitely symmetrical growth, and from this point the eye ranges 
over rolling masses of hills, whose ravines are full of Tree Ferns 
and away beyond them to 60 miles of pathless jungle, uninhabited 
save by snakes and wild beasts, bounded only by the distant 
ocean. 
Time fails me to tell you of half the lovely scenes which we 
beheld in Ceylon, but before whisking you away to distant Burma I 
must just tell you of what I consider two of the events of my 
life, botanically speaking. Never can I forget my first sight of 
Amherstia nobilis, that marvellous leguminous tree native of 
Burma and Siam, in the governor’s ground at Kandy. Imagine at 
Laburnum enlarged to the size of a goodly forest tree, and it» 
tresses of flower magnified into huge bunches of crimson and 
amber 4 feet long, and each flower 5 or 6 inches across, and you 
will not wonder that when we suddenly came in sight of Amherstia. 
nobilis we involuntarily burst into exclamations of wonder and 
delight. Nor can I ever forget our visit to the far-famed gardens- 
of Peradeniya, with its grove of gigantic Indiarubber trees, it» 
superb specimens of Ravenala madagascariensis, so-called Travellers’” 
Palms, which is no Palm at all but a Plantain ; its unequalled 
collection of Palms, and, above all, its matchless groups of gigantic 
Bamboos, the bases of the stems of which are as large round as a 
moderate timber tree of these latitudes, and its great collection of 
tropical plants generally. I should add, by-the-by, that in a 
plantation close by these gardens we saw Vanilla and Cacao iu 
growth by the acre. We were told that the former grew as easily 
as grass, and that it a plant was cut off at the ground it flourished 
almost as well apart from its roots as with them. Yet in our stoves 
how difficult it is even to maintain this Orchid in a semi-moribund 
state, so delicate are the conditions to which plants are adapted ia 
Nature. 
But I must hurry you on lest we fail even to arrive at Burma 
to-night. Our voyage from Colombo to Calcutta was uneventful,, 
nor were the four days from Calcutta to Rangoon remarkable 
except for the contrast between the splendidly kept P. & 0. steamers 
and the s.s. '• Bundara ” of the B. 1. line, by which we went on. 
We had 600 coolies, native Indian labourers, on deck, and as two- 
thirds of them were generally smoking their hubble-bubbles night 
and day, a kind of rough hookah, in which is consumed a mixture 
of tobacco, Indian hemp, opium, and dried cow manure, a sickening^ 
odour pervaded every part of the ship, and made food a disgust and 
sleep almost an impossibility. 
Hundreds of miles before the ship enters the mouths of the- 
Irawaddy, the sapphire of the open ocean gives place to a brown 
tint, which proclaims that far out to sea the waters of that mighty 
river, which has flowed 800 miles through the length of Burma,, 
mingle with those of the still mightier ocean. At last we entered 
the great mouth of the river, which forms the water way to the- 
City of Rangoon, one of the many which for 100 miles of coast 
form the outflow of the Irawaddy ; and steaming between low 
banks fringed with Palms and dotted with villages came at length 
in sight of the golden spire of the Great Pagoda, which, towering 
far above the loftiest trees, is a conspicuous land mark for leagues 
around, and then ran up to the landing stage, where at last we 
