The Pearl of India, Maturin Murray Ballou [best english books to read for beginners .TXT] 📗

The Ancient Capital of Kandy.—An Artificial Lake.—The Great River of Ceylon.—Site of the Capital of the Central Province.—On the Way from Colombo to Kandy.—The Tiny Musk-Deer.—The Wild Boar.—Native Cabins.—From the Railway Car Windows.—The Lotus.—Destructive White Ants and their Enemies.—Wild Animals.—The Mother of Twins.—A Little Waif.—A Zigzag Railway.—An Expensive Road to build.—"Sensation Rock" with an Evil History.—Grand Alpine Scenery.

Kandy, the Maha-neura, or "great city," of the Singhalese, one of the ancient capitals of Ceylon, is beautifully situated in the bosom of the verdant hills in the central province of the island, just about half way between the east and west coasts, a little more than seventy miles north of Colombo. Here the town nestles on a bend of the Maha-velle-Ganga ("great sandy river"), which nearly surrounds the old city at a distance of three miles from its centre. It became the capital of the island in 1592. As it was repeatedly captured and burned by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, it presents no architectural monuments with any pretension to antiquity. Here we are about seventeen hundred feet above sea level, beside a spacious, though artificial lake, which represents a small portion of the grand system of irrigation for which Ceylon was so famous through a score of centuries. There is no natural lake worthy of the name in the country, though there are numerous ponds, large and small, here and there, especially in the southern part of the island. In the centre of this large sheet of water, with its charming aspect of repose and freshness, is a tiny island, where the last king of Kandy, who was a notorious tyrant, established his harem with true oriental lavishness. It is now improved as a safe place for the storage of gunpowder and other explosive war materials. At least, it was formerly thus appropriated, though perhaps it is not so now. The infamous sovereign referred to, Sri Wikrema Raja Singha, at whose death ended a long and famous line of kings, was outrageous beyond all precedent. He was accustomed to behead any one of his counselors who dared to disagree with him, also wreaking his vengeance upon the individual's innocent family, males and females, by treating them in a similar manner.

The immense tank at Kandy is of modern construction, having been finished early in the present century by the king whose name we have just given. The heavy embankment which holds the lake in its bed has been made into a broad and most charming esplanade, decked with handsome shade trees, thus surrounding the basin with an inviting driveway and promenade, enlivened by choice flowering shrubs, whose names only an accomplished botanist could remember. Among them the ever-fragrant cape jessamine is conspicuous, together with beds of violets and mignonette. Palms prevail everywhere on the island, with their bare trunks reaching sixty or seventy feet upward, at which point they throw out their deep green, gracefully drooping foliage in thick clusters. The lake is about three miles in circumference, encircled by a low stone wall, and is, judged even by modern rules, a remarkably skillful piece of engineering.

The Maha-velle-Ganga rises in the base of the neighboring mountains, and, flowing past Kandy, turns to the north, finally discharging itself by several mouths into the ocean far away on the east coast, near the port of Trincomalee. It drains in its course upwards of four thousand square miles of territory, being a hundred and thirty miles long, and is navigable by small boats nearly to Kandy. The hills which encompass the town make of it a verdant amphitheatre, and are themselves dotted with flourishing tea-plantations, mostly owned by English agriculturists, the growing of tea, as already explained, having largely superseded, or perhaps we should say supplemented, that of coffee throughout the island. In the higher regions, near the foot-hills, where the big river rises, there used to be a great coffee district, healthy and populous; but alas! malaria and jungle fever lie crouching upon its lower banks like a beast of prey, ready to pounce upon the passing and incautious traveler, while hungry, wide-jawed crocodiles lie half-concealed in the low mangroves, ready to snap up any dog or young native child which thoughtlessly approaches their domain. The Ceylon crocodile is a large animal, quite common on the inland rivers and deserted, half ruined tanks, and frequently measures over twenty feet from the snout to the tip of the tail. In the malarial districts, all sorts of insects, reptiles, and wild animals thrive and multiply abundantly, but to man, and even to most domestic animals, such regions are poisonous.

The reason why the river-courses in Ceylon are so unsalubrious, so fever-inducing, is easily explained. These waterways overflow their banks in the rainy season, depositing an accumulation of vegetable matter which remains to decompose when the river subsides, thus infecting the surrounding country. The banks of swiftly flowing streams are considered to be healthful localities, but they do not prove so in this tropical island. The Maha-velle-Ganga, which is the Mississippi of Ceylon, is no exception to this rule.

In coming to Kandy from Colombo, the railway for the first forty miles threads its way through a thinly populated region, over a level country which is often so low as to be of a marshy nature, though the soil is marked by overwhelming fertility. About fifteen miles from the capital is Henaratgoda, where the government Tropical Gardens are situated. Here the process of acclimatization for exotics is tried with plants which might not thrive at the altitude of the Botanical Gardens of Peradenia, near Kandy. The railway stations, it will be observed, are all beautifully ornamented with tropical flowers adapted to the situation. This is getting to be a universal custom all over the world. Even in Russia, on the line between St. Petersburg and Moscow, every depot is thus beautified. The railways are a government monopoly in this island, furnishing a handsome revenue. There are no presidents to swallow up salaries of fifty thousand dollars each, nor other ornamental officials receiving enormous sums of money for imaginary services. At each station in Ceylon, pretty children of both sexes offer the traveler tempting native fruits. They are very interesting, these children, in spite of their unkempt hair and entire nudity. Their big black eyes are full of pleading earnestness and bright expression, while their dark brown skin shines like polished mahogany under the hot rays of an equatorial sun. The land seen on the route is interspersed by rice plantations, groves of palms, bananas, and plantains, while the jungle at intervals is seen to be impassable, the trees are so bound together with stout, creeping vines and close undergrowth. Hump-backed cows and black swine, with an occasional domesticated buffalo, are all the animals one sees, though there are a plenty of wild ones not far away in less populous districts, including bears, deer, leopards, and elephants. The buffalo is almost an amphibious animal, and may be seen for many hours daily nearly immersed in the ponds, lakes, or rivers, only its head, horns, and nose visible above the water. Thus he will lie or stand for any length of time, chewing the cud like other creatures of his kind, until hunger compels him to seek food on the dry land. Happy for him if he be not attacked, while thus exposed, by the voracious pond leeches, more fatal than the flies which he strives to avoid by thus immersing his body. The elephants are still numerous, notwithstanding so many have been exported to the continent hard by. A carefully prepared estimate published at Colombo last year (close of 1893) places the probable number of wild elephants in Ceylon at five thousand. It is also believed that the small numbers of these animals which are now shot by Europeans annually will not decrease this aggregate, because of the natural breeding which is all the time going on. There are also found here in abundance the wild boar, jackal, ant-eater, and a great variety of monkeys (the latter afraid only of Europeans), and the cheetah. This last named is an animal of the leopard family, nearly three feet in height, and six feet long from nose to tail-tip, but exceedingly active and over-fond of monkey-flesh. It is of a dun color, with round black spots distributed uniformly over the body.

The tiny musk-deer, so called, though it has no musk-bag or scent about it of that pungent nature, is indigenous to Ceylon. There