Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon, Sir Samuel White Baker [best summer reads of all time TXT] 📗

a few minutes he was by the side of the dead elk--a specimen of a true hound, who certainly had exhibited a large share of "reason."


CHAPTER X.


Wild Fruits--Ingredients for a "Soupe Maigre"--Orchidaceous Plants--Wild Nutmegs--Native Oils--Cinnamon--Primeval Forests--Valuable Woods--The Mahawelli River--Variety of Palms--Cocoa-nut Toddy--Arrack--Cocoa-nut Oil--Cocoa-nut-planting--The Talipot Palm--The Areca Palm--Betel Chewing--Sago Nuts--Varicty of Bees--Waste of Beeswax--Edible Fungi--Narcotic Puff-ball--Intoxicating Drugs--Poisoned Cakes--The "Sack Tree"--No Gum Trees of Value in Ceylon.


Among the inexperienced there is a prevalent idea connected with tropical forests and jungles that they teem with wild fruits, which Nature is supposed to produce spontaneously. Nothing can be more erroneous than such an opinion; even edible berries are scantily supplied by the wild shrubs and trees, and these, in lieu of others of superior quality, are sometimes dignified by the name of fruit.

The guava and the katumbille are certainly very numerous throughout the Ouva district; the latter being a dark red, rough-skinned kind of plum, the size of a greengage, but free from stone. It grows upon a thorny bush about fifteen feet high; but the fruit is too acid to please most palates; the extreme thirst produced by a day's shooting in a burning sun makes it refreshing when plucked from the tree; but it does not aspire to the honor of a place at a table, where it can only appear in the form of red currant jelly, for which it is an undeniable substitute.

Excellent blackberries and a very large and full-flavored black raspberry grow at Newera Ellia; likewise the Cape gooseberry, which is of the genus "solanum." The latter is a round yellow berry, the size of a cherry; this is enclosed in a loose bladder, which forms an outer covering. The flavor is highly aromatic, but, like most Ceylon wild fruits, it is too acid.

The sweetest and the best of the jungle productions is the "morra." This is a berry about the size of a small nutmeg, which grows in clusters upon a large tree of rich dark foliage. The exterior of the berry is brown and slightly rough; the skin, or rather the case, is brittle and of the consistence of an egg-shell; this, when broken and peeled off, exposes a semi-transparent pulp, like a skinned grape in appearance and in flavor. It is extremely juicy but, unfortunately, a large black stone occupies the centre and at least one-half of the bulk of the entire fruit.

The jambo apple is a beautiful fruit in appearance being the facsimile of a snow-white pear formed of wax, with a pink blush upon one side. Its exterior beauty is all that it can boast of, as the fruit itself is vapid and tasteless. In fact, all wild fruits are, for the most part, great exaggerations. I have seen in a work on Ceylon the miserable little acid berry of the rattan, which is no larger than a currant, described as a fruit; hawthorn berries might, with equal justice, be classed among the fruits of Great Britain.

I will not attempt to describe these paltry productions in detail; there is necessarily a great variety throughout the island, but their insignificance does not entitle them to a description which would raise them far above their real merit.

It is nevertheless most useful to a sportsman in Ceylon to possess a sufficient stock of botanical information for his personal convenience. A man may be lost in the jungles or hard up for provisions in some out-of-the-way place, where, if he has only a saucepan, he can generally procure something eatable in the way of herbs. It is not to be supposed, however, that he would succeed in making a good dinner; the reader may at any time procure something similar in England by restricting himself to nettle-tops--an economical but not a fattening vegetable. Anything, however simple, is better than an empty stomach, and when the latter is positively empty it is wonderful how the appetite welcomes the most miserable fare.

At Newera Ellia the jungles would always produce a supply for a soupe maigre. There is an esculent nillho which grows in the forest in the bottoms of the swampy ravines. This is a most succulent plant, which grows to the height or length of about seven feet, as its great weight keeps it close to the ground. It is so brittle that it snaps like a cucumber when struck by a stick, and it bears a delicate, dark-blue blossom. When stewed, it is as tender as the vegetable marrow, but its flavor approaches more closely to that of the cucumber. Wild ginger also abounds in the forests. This is a coarse variety of the "amomum zintgiber." The leaves, which spring from the ground, attain a height of seven or eight feet; a large, crimson, fleshy blossom also springs from the ground in the centre of the surrounding leaf-stems. The root is coarse, large, but wanting in fine flavor, although the young tubers are exceedingly tender and delicate. This is the favorite food of elephants on the Ceylon mountains; but it is a curious fact that they invariably reject the leaves, which any one would suppose would be their choicest morsel, as they are both succulent and plentiful. The elephants simply use them as a handle for tearing up the roots, which they bite off and devour, throwing the leaves on one side.

The wild parsnip is also indigenous to the plains on the mountains. As usual with most wild plants of this class, it has little or no root, but runs to leaf. The seeds are very highly flavored, and are gathered by the natives for their curries.

There is, likewise, a beautiful orchidaceous plant, which is very common throughout the patinas on the mountains, and which produces the very finest quality of arrowroot. So much is this valued in the Nepaul country in India, that I have been assured by a person well acquainted with that locality, that this quality of arrowroot is usually sold for its weight in rupees. In vain have I explained this to the Cingalese; they will not attempt its preparation because their fathers did not eat it; and yet these same men will walk forty miles to cut a bundle of sticks of the galla gaha tree for driving buffaloes!--their fathers did this, and therefore they do it. Thus this beautiful plant is only appreciated by those whose instinct leads them to its discovery. The wild hogs plough up the patinas and revel in this delicate food. The plant itself is almost lost in the rank herbage of the patinas, but its beautiful pink, hyacinth-shaped blossom attracts immediate attention. Few plants combine beauty of appearance, scent and utility, but this is the perfection of each quality--nothing can surpass the delicacy and richness of its perfume. It has two small bulbs about an inch below the surface of the earth, and these, when broken, exhibit a highly granulated texture, semi-transparent like half-boiled sago. From these bulbs the arrowroot is produced by pounding them in water and drying the precipitated farina in the sun.

There are several beautiful varieties of orchidaceous plants upon the mountains; among others, several species of the dendrobium. Its rich yellow flowers hang in clusters from a withered tree, the only sign of life upon a giant trunk decayed, like a wreath upon a grave. The scent of this flower is well known as most delicious; one plant will perfume a large room.

There is one variety of this tribe in the neighborhood of Newera Ellia, which is certainly unknown in English collections. It blossoms in April; the flowers are a bright lilac, and I could lay my band upon it at any time, as I have never seen it but in one spot, where it flourishes in profusion. This is about fourteen miles from Newera Ellia, and I have never yet collected a specimen, as I have invariably been out hunting whenever I have met with it.

The black pepper is also indigenous throughout Ceylon. At Newera Ellia the leaves of this vine are highly pungent, although at this elevation it does not produce fruit. A very short distance toward a lower elevation effects a marked change, as within seven miles it fruits in great perfection.

At a similar altitude, the wild nutmeg is very common throughout the forests. This fruit is a perfect anomaly. The tree is entirely different to that of the cultivated species. The latter is small, seldom exceeding the size of an apple-tree, and bearing a light green myrtle-shaped leaf, which is not larger than that of a peach. The wild species, on the contrary, is a large forest tree, with leaves equal in size to those of the horse chestnut; nevertheless, it produces a perfect nutmeg. There is the outer rind of fleshy texture, like an unripe peach; enclosed within is the nutlike shell, enveloped in the crimson network of mace, and within the shell is the nutmeg itself. All this is perfect enough, but, alas, the grand desideratum is wanting--it has no flavor or aroma whatever.

It is a gross imposition on the part of Nature; a most stingy trick upon the public, and a regular do. The mace has no taste whatever, and the nutmeg has simply a highly acrid and pungent taste, without any spicy flavor, but merely abounding in a rank and disagreeable oil. The latter is so plentiful that I am astonished it has not been experimented upon, especially by the natives, who are great adepts in expressing oils from many substances.

Those most common in Ceylon are the cocoa-nut and gingerly oils. The former is one of the grand staple commodities of the island; the latter is the produce of a small grain, grown exclusively by the natives.

But, in addition to these, there are various other oils manufactured by the Cingalese. These are the cinnamon oil, castor oil, margosse oil, mee oil, kenar oil, meeheeria oil; and both clove and lemon-grass oil are prepared by Europeans.

The first, which is the cinnamon oil, is more properly a kind of vegetable wax, being of the consistence of stearine. This is prepared from the berries of the cinnamon shrubs which are boiled in water until the catty substance or so-called oil, floats upon the surface; this is then skimmed off and, when a sufficient quantity is collected, it is boiled down until all watery particles are evaporated, and the melted fat is turned out into a shallow vessel to cool. It has a pleasant, though, perhaps, a rather faint aromatic smell, and is very delicious as an adjunct in the culinary art. In addition to this it possesses gentle aperient properties, which render it particularly wholesome.

Castor oil is also obtained by the natives by boiling, and it is accordingly excessively rank after long keeping. The castor-oil plant is a perfect weed throughout Ceylon, being one of the few useful shrubs that will flourish in such poor soil without cultivation.

Margosse oil is extracted from the fruit of a tree of that name. It has an extremely fetid and disagreeable smell, which will effectually prevent the contact of flies or any other insect. On this account it is a valuable preventive to the attacks of flies upon open wounds, in addition to which it possesses powerful healing properties.

Mee oil is obtained from the fruit of the mee tree. This fruit is about the size of an apricot, and is extremely rich in its produce; but the oil is of a coarse description, and is simply used by the