Chapter XX: Trincomalee to Galle

Trincomalee—A Tamil play—A luminous sea—Batticaloa—Flying-fish—Galle—
Buona Vista—A kabragoya—Green corals—Uses of the cocoa-palm.

I have seen some curious specimens of plays and theatres in many lands, but none more singular than an evening open-air performance at Trincomalee by a company of Tamil actors. The ground formed a grassy amphitheatre gently sloping down to the centre, where a large circular stage was erected, and protected from possible rain by a canopy of matting. The spectators were closely seated in circles all around, those at the back being sufficiently raised to command an excellent view of the stage, which was divided into six imaginary sections, the players actually performing each short scene six times over, facing each section of the audience by turns. Wearisome as such a performance would prove if seen too often, it was certainly interesting for once, and the native spectators were evidently delighted, and waited with exemplary patience while each scene went the round of the other five sides.

A few of the actors were very handsomely dressed, to represent ancient Tamil kings and queens, and loaded with gorgeous jewellery of real old patterns. Some wore large richly jewelled animals placed on each shoulder or on the head, the front of the stage being dimly lighted by rude lamps fed with cocoa-nut oil, and stuck on plantain stems about five feet high. These details would have been invisible had not each of the principal actors been escorted by a coolie in the ordinary undress, whose duty it was to carry a small earthenware lamp fastened to the end of a stick, and this he thrust right in the face of his master that all might be able to see him and his finery.

A number of other coolies in the lightest of raiment stood about on the stage to help in various ways, and as the orchestra (which consisted of a chorus of discordant voices and musicians beating tom-toms and other drums, blowing shells and shrill pipes) was also on the stage, and all moved round together, the effect was most confusing, and the richly dressed actors were almost hidden by the scantily draped subordinates.

It is difficult to realise that it is not so very long since our own drama was even more primitive than this, and yet our kings and their courtiers could sit out a ‘morality’ or a ‘mystery’ continuing for nine or ten hours.[172]

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Footnote 172:

On such occasions the stage was a rush-strewn scaffolding, with a
light cloth canopy, and that scenic effects were not costly may be
inferred from such entries in the accounts of the play-giving guilds
as the following:—‘Paid for mending of Hell, 2d. For keeping fire at
ditto, 4_d._ For setting the world on fire, 5_d._ To Crowe for making
three worlds, 3_s._’ The chief actors received 3_s._ 4_d._ each, but
the _prima donna_ only 2_s._

It is curious to learn that, as in China at the present day, so in
Britain prior to A.D. 1661, no women might appear on the stage, so
that for at least half a century all Shakspeare’s daintiest dames were
impersonated by youths!

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Happily for the success of this open-air entertainment, the weather proved perfect, which was more than we could count upon, for (it was now the end of September) heavy tropical thunderstorms were pretty frequent and were certainly no joke. Sometimes they came on very suddenly. Dark clouds gathered with surprising rapidity, and then the blinding glare of vivid lightning and the crashing thunder-peals were succeeded by such a pitiless deluge as defied the stoutest water-proofs. Such storms, however, passed away as quickly as they arose, and seemed only to add fresh charm to the fragrant stillness of the night, illuminated by a thousand points of glittering pale-green light as the light-giving beetles which we call fire-flies flashed to and fro, and the whole air was perfumed with the fragrance of orange, lime, and shaddock blossoms.

But the chance of such soakings and the amount of ‘roughing’ which is inevitable in jungle travel form a grave risk for anyone not endowed with very robust health, and even before we reached Trincomalee it was evident that the Bishop would be compelled to abandon his northward journey to Jaffna, in the extreme north of the Isle. When, therefore, at the end of an anxious month of severe illness, the kindest and most careful of doctors (Dr. Goodwin) was able to sanction his leaving Trincomalee, it was clear that he must return to Colombo by the easiest route, namely, by the Government steamship _Serendib_,[173] which had only to call at Batticaloa and Galle. So, after a regretful parting with many friends whose kindness at such a time can never be forgotten, we embarked one evening at sunset, and some hours later sailed out of the beautiful harbour in the clear starlight.

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Footnote 173:

One of the many names by which Ceylon was known to the ancients and to
the writers of ‘The Arabian Nights.’

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The sea there is intensely phosphorescent, and it seemed that night as though the sea-gods were holding high revel, and we poor mortals strained our eyes in the effort to peer down through the waves, which were all aglow with marine fireworks and illuminations. I never saw anything more lovely. The sky was very dark, with stormy clouds scudding before a pretty stiff breeze, but the sea was all full of dancing, glittering points of pale white fire, with here and there large dazzling stars, which gleamed suddenly, then faded away into darkness, like the intermittent flash from some beacon-light. Wave beyond wave, right away to the horizon, was plainly defined in pallid light, here and there crested with brighter fire, where the breeze had caught the curving billow and tossed it back in glittering spray.

As we looked down through the waters and watched the myriad points of light rushing upwards, some one suggested a comparison to champagne or some such effervescing drink alive with air bubbles. But these luminous globules frequently start on independent careers, and dash to right or left, according to some impulse of their own devising.

Often as I have watched the phosphoric wonders of our dark Northern seas (when, sailing through a shoal of herring, each separate fish has seemed a thing of living light), I have never seen the light so widespread as here. It seemed as if the sea-gods had issued large supplies of phosphorus for the occasion, for creatures which on other nights are quite invisible, to-night shone, probably with borrowed lustre. Large families of flying-fish darted from the water as we passed, suggesting flights of luminous birds, and here and there a school of great, heavy porpoises rushed by, leaving a trail of living fire; and thousands of delicate little jelly-fish floated peacefully along, like inverted cups fringed with fire—most lovely, fairy-like creatures.

On a night like this I always, if possible, take up a position either at the bow or stern of the ship. From the former you look sheer down, as from the edge of a precipice, and watch the dividing of the waters as the vessel cuts her way through the waves, and the startled creatures of all sorts awaken, but in their hurried flight they quickly light their lamps, and the white spray that is thrown off from the bows, in a ceaseless fountain, glitters like a shower of radiant stars. It always reminds me of the Ancient Mariner’s lonely watch, when from his eerie ship

The elfish light fell off in hoary flakes!

Coleridge must assuredly have watched on such nights as these.

Then, if you make a pilgrimage to the stern, and can endure to stand just above the throbbing, thumping screw, you see the most wonderful sight of all. For the great propeller literally churns the waters far, far below the surface; and each stroke produces a body of clear green and blue light, which rolls upwards in a soft brilliancy quite indescribable—like dissolved opals. As each successive globe of this fairy-like green fire rises to the surface, it breaks in bubbling, hissing spray, and spreads itself over the surface, leaving a pathway of fire, which remains visible for a long time after the vessel has passed, fading away in the distance, like a reflection of the Milky Way that spans the dark sky above it.

Some of my far-travelled companions, who had sailed in many seas, were talking one evening of the various forms in which this beautiful phenomenon appears. One of the officers had the good luck to see what is known as ‘white water’ as he crossed the Arabian Sea. It was a dark moonless night in summer, only the stars were reflected on the calm waters, when suddenly a soft, silvery light overspread the ocean—a tremulous, shimmering light; the waters lay smooth as a mirror. He drew up a bucketful of this gleaming water, and found it was clouded, as if tinged with milk, and luminous with phosphorus. When he emptied the bucket it continued to glow for some time.

Another officer said he too had seen a milk-white sea, in about the same part of the ocean, but when some of the men on board drew up water for examination it was perfectly clear, and they concluded that the curious appearance of the sea was due to the fact that they were passing through a soft hazy mist, and though the night was so dark that they were scarcely conscious of its influence, they supposed that it in some way refracted the starlight on to the surface of the waters, and to this they attributed the quivering of the pallid light—tremulous as a mirage.[174]

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Footnote 174:

I have myself witnessed just such an effect of dazzling light,
illuminating the whole surface of the water, during two midnight
storms in New Zealand. Vide ‘At Home in Fiji,’ vol. ii. p. 169.

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If this was really the cause of the light, it must have been due to some very strange condition of the atmosphere, as even in the tropics such a phenomenon is very rarely seen, and we cannot say as much for mists!

I am told that a similar appearance has occasionally been observed in the North Sea, and even on the Northumbrian coast; and the fishers have noted that its presence indicated a very poor herring season, and that the temperature of the sea was unusually high during its duration. It proved to be a very tangible form of whiteness, for when they drew up their nets they found them coated with a substance resembling lime.[175]

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Footnote 175:

The fisher-folk of Shields and Tynemouth, and the villages immediately
to the north, noticed this peculiar condition of the water in the
summer of 1878, which proved an exceptionally bad year for the
herring-fishers.

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We reached Batticaloa about noon on the following day, and were once more cordially welcomed to the same pleasant quarters which had been assigned to us on our previous visit.

On the following morning, Captain Varian having most kindly undertaken to show me some of my brother’s cocoa-nut estates, we started before dawn in one of the _Serendib_ boats, towed by the steam-launch a long way ahead of us—a delightful mode of travel, securing perfectly smooth, gliding motion. The morning was exquisite, and all the ranges of blue, distant hills and wooded headlands were faultlessly mirrored in the calm sea-lake.

About eighteen miles from Batticaloa we landed at the first estate, then proceeded to another, and ploughed our way through an apparently interminable grove of cocoa-palms all planted in straight lines, at regular intervals, in deep, hot sand—endless rows of tall palms, all of much the same height, extending for miles and miles as far as the eye could see, and much farther, all growing out of the arid sand—very different from lovely half-wild groves where trees of all ages grow at their own will from a cool, deep carpet of the greenest guinea-grass by the brink of some cool lake; the young ones like huge clumps of great ferns growing cup-wise, others in every stage of growth, the middle-aged ones strongly resembling tree ferns with fronds fully twenty feet in length. It would be difficult to imagine richer vegetation than that, but these orderly plantations are quite another thing.

It was very fatiguing even to walk once along that sand-track, and I realised as I had never done before what must have been the sinking loneliness of the brave young heart, exiled from one of the cheeriest and most beautiful homes in Scotland, to settle quite alone on these desolate sand-banks, and commence the toil of planting them with the nuts about which so little was then known that speedy remuneration was expected, whereas the experience of the next fifteen years was one of continual outlay, ceaseless watchfulness to defend the young plantations from the ravages of most mischievous boring beetles,[176] rats, white ants, herds of wild hogs, porcupines, troops of elephants, and other foes, and no remuneration whatever.

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Footnote 176:

_Oryctes rhinoceros._

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Then, when the day of his emancipation came, the estates passed to other hands, and strangers now reap the abundant fruits of his long years of weary toil.

Planters of the present day, profiting by the experience of their predecessors, find that by a liberal application of oil-cake, ashes, seaweed, salt mud, and various other manures, they can induce young palms to commence flowering about the seventh year (some which have been fed as carefully and liberally as prize oxen have actually flowered in the fourth year), and, moreover, that the trees thus nourished will bear at least twice as many nuts, but the work at the time to which I refer was in a great measure experimental.

Even now cocoa-nut planting is a very uncertain venture, for not only do many estates wait twenty years ere yielding a full return (though probably about half the trees commence bearing in the fourteenth year), but the crop is also very variable, some estates yielding only one candy of copra to the acre, while others yield three.

The fact is, that there are in Ceylon a vast number of nameless varieties of cocoa-palms, and unless almost impossible care is observed in the selection of nuts for planting, the crops will always be variable. An experienced planter says: ‘One tree begins to flower in its fifth year on four feet of stem; its nearest neighbour, equally vigorous, runs up to fifteen or even twenty feet, and only begins to flower in the tenth year. One will have fertile germs on its first flower, and its neighbour will only produce barren flowers for twelve months. One will, within a year of opening its first flower, fall into a regular yield of a hundred nuts per annum of medium size, while another close by carries from thirty to forty very large ones, and the next in the same line carries above two hundred very small ones.’

Besides these differences in the nuts themselves, varieties of soil are responsible for many disappointments, some planters having wasted much energy on swampy or clayey soils, only to find that after ten or twelve years the palms gave no promise of fruit, while sandy soil, moist but not too wet, is the most favourable.

In Ceylon the cocoa-nuts are gathered six times a year, and when liberally manured and carefully tended should continue in bearing for upwards of a century.

We trudged through deep sand till we reached the small bungalow of the present owner, who gave us refreshing cocoa-nuts to drink, and lent us the cart, drawn by an elephant, which daily collects the fallen nuts; but I cannot say we found it pleasant, as the elephant had a faculty for bolting first on one side, then on the other, against the palms, thereby keeping us constantly on the jerk; so we very shortly agreed that even the fatigue of walking was preferable, and accordingly descended from our uncomfortable quarters, and trudged through the hot sand till we reached the site of my brother’s original house, now marked only by the fruit trees which he planted round it.

We returned to Batticaloa at sunset, and in the peaceful moonlight I stood by the grassy grave in the little ‘God’s acre,’ with an intensified sympathy for many of ‘our boys’ leaving the happy home-nest to carve their fortunes in distant lands.

Amongst minor details in a day of so great interest, I may mention the multitude of fresh-water snail-shells which we found on the banks of a small tank, and also the pleasure of finding a number of turtle’s eggs, each containing a perfect miniature turtle quite ready to be hatched—the neatest tiny creatures.

On the following evening we took leave of our many kind friends, and returned on board the _Serendib_, which was lying outside the harbour-bar, and fully did we realise the sudden change from the dead calm of the sea-lake thus guarded to the tossing ocean beyond.

This bar is often the occasion of very grave inconvenience to the inhabitants of Batticaloa, for when a strong sea-breeze is blowing the waves dash upon it so tumultuously that no boat dare face those raging breakers. In this comparatively tideless sea, high or low tide afford very slight variation in the depth of water on the bar, which in the spring months is sometimes barely three and a half feet. Moreover, owing to the usual deposit of silt, the mouth of the river is growing daily narrower, notwithstanding the strong current which sweeps the shore.

Happily, the singular regularity in the variation of the direction of the wind affords some security, as the boatmen well know that the sea-breeze will attain its height shortly before noon, when the bar will probably be impassable. But at night the land-breeze sets in and quiets the tumult, so that by morning there is comparative calm, and from dawn till about 9 A.M. the bar can generally be crossed in safety. But, of course, it is not always that a steamer can lie in the open roadstead to await these possibilities, and so it occasionally happens that passengers and cargo cannot get on board, while other passengers and goods cannot be put ashore. At other times the transit is effected at the cost of an hour’s hard rowing and a general soaking.

Happily for us, at the end of October, we had no such unpleasant experience, wind and waves combining to speed us on our way.

All the next day was taken up in beating about in search of a reported rock, which we failed to find; but to a sketcher ‘all is fish that comes to the net,’ and I was thus enabled to secure sundry reminiscences of the coast as seen from the sea or the inland mountain ranges.

Speaking of fish, I never remember seeing so many flying-fish as on that voyage. They rose from the waves, at our approach, like flashes of silvery spray, and flew perhaps two hundred yards, just skimming the surface of the water—then again, just touching the wave to moisten their transparent wings. They looked so like flights of darting birds that I can well understand the ancients describing them as ‘sea-swallows.’

It seems barbarous to think of these graceful little creatures from a gastronomic point of view, but certainly they are the very daintiest fish-morsels that ever rejoiced an epicure. (In the West Indies they are so highly prized that a special method of capturing them has been devised. The fishers go out at nights in their canoes, carrying blazing torches, to allure these inquisitive ‘sea-moths,’ who come flying to the light, and are captured in small nets fastened on to poles, like our landing-nets.)

I saved some of their wings (I suppose I ought correctly to say ‘pectoral fins’), which are formed of a tissue of curious gauze-like membrane, stretched on a folding framework, and must, I think, have inspired Chinamen and other early sailors with the original design for folding sails of matting on movable bamboos.

We reached Galle on the following afternoon, and found it beautiful as ever, but the masts of yet one more newly sunken steamer rose from the waters of its lovely, treacherous harbour, wherein so many fine ships have met their doom.

Archdeacon Schrader ‘the Good’ came to welcome the Bishop, and to fetch us all to his hospitable roof, and to service at the beautiful church, All Saints’, which owes its existence to his energy. It is by far the finest in the island, and one whose constant and hearty services have come as a breath of home to many a wanderer from far-distant lands, pausing here on his voyage.

On the following day the Archdeacon drove us to see the large Orphanage at Buona Vista, which crowns the summit of the steep headland which forms the southern arm of the harbour, and commands a lovely view of Galle. We were most kindly received by Mr. and Mrs. Marks,[177] who showed us their troop of very nice-looking boys and girls. This is a mission-station of the S.P.G. Society, and supplies Christian teachers, both male and female, for the surrounding village schools. We were told that, of the children who attend these village schools, about one-sixth are Christians, and it is found that, even among those who at the time appear quite uninfluenced by Christian teaching, a considerable number receive impressions, which, at a later period, develop into active principles.

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Footnote 177:

The Orphanage is now under the care of Miss Callender.

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Strange to say, the heathen parents, though perfectly aware of the heart’s desire of the teachers, make no objection whatever to their children being carefully instructed in all Christian knowledge until the day comes when the young student, being fully of age to make his own decision, desires to be baptized. Then every possible means is adopted to counteract his newly awakened faith. Buddhist priests are called in to reason with him; expulsion from home and disinheritance are all threatened, but rarely overcome the resolution once formed, and eventually the relations, finding they cannot shake the faith of the young convert, abstain from active persecution.

On another hill, bearing the very British name of Richmond, and also commanding a lovely view, stands the Wesleyan Mission and its schools. It is in connection with a large chapel in the town, at which services are alternately held in English, Portuguese, and Singhalese.

Greater interest in point of antiquity attaches to the fine old cruciform Dutch church, which is paved with tombstones of bygone generations, whose monuments also crowd the walls. Here services according to the form of the Presbyterian Church of Holland are held in English, recalling the autocratic manner in which the Dutch conquerors strove to ‘convert’ the islanders by the aid of interpreters, utterly refusing themselves to learn their language.

About ten miles inland from Galle lies Baddegama, a lovely spot on the Gindura river, where, in 1818, the Church Missionary Society commenced England’s first effort on behalf of her newly annexed colony. A very satisfactory feature of this station is the boarding-school for Singhalese girls, which has provided many well-taught Christian wives for the young men trained in Christian colleges. Some years ago the fine old church tower was struck by lightning, as was also the verandah of the mission-house, and the missionary in charge, Mr. Balding, narrowly escaped being killed, an incident of which he and his parishioners are perpetually reminded by the sound of a cracked bell, said to have previously been well toned.

Another point of interest near Baddegama is the oldest sugar-cane estate in the Isle, a cultivation which has not been largely taken up in Ceylon.

On our homeward way, as we drove through a cool shady glade, the horses started as a gigantic lizard, or rather iguana, of a greenish-grey colour, with yellow stripes and spots, called by the natives kabragoya,[178] awoke from its midday sleep, and slowly, with the greatest deliberation, walked right across the road just in front of us. It is a notoriously slothful reptile, and on this occasion fully sustained its reputation, for it did not hurry itself in the smallest degree; so we had to wait its time, and had full leisure to observe the lazy movements of this strange creature, which was fully seven feet in length, with a general resemblance to a crocodile.

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Footnote 178:

_Hydro saurus salvator._

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Like that very unattractive monster, the kabragoya is amphibious, and when in danger tries to make for the water. It is quite harmless, however, except in the matter of eating fowls, and is eminently peaceful in its disposition, unless roused at close quarters, when, in self-defence, it can turn on a foe and administer a tremendous blow with its armour-plated tail, which, being provided with a sharp crest, can inflict a very serious wound on the lightly draped natives. Occasionally a rash aggressor receives a broken arm or leg, as a warning against molesting harmless fellow-creatures; consequently the Singhalese treat these huge lizards with considerable respect. The all-destroying foreigner occasionally shoots one, and notes its strange tenacity of life, the head being apparently the only vulnerable, or at any rate the only vital, spot. I believe, however, that the Veddahs are the only people who have sufficient strength of mind to eat the ugly monster.

I had not been in Galle since the memorable occasion when I first landed there on my way to India, and received my never-to-be-forgotten very first impressions of palm-trees and the tropics—first impressions of perfect novelty and fairy-like enchantment—so of course I longed to return to Wakwalla, to which we accordingly drove in the evening. But, alas! as with all else in this world, familiarity does wear off the keen sense of delight even in palm-trees, and exquisite as such a drive through mazes of tropical foliage must ever be, I felt on this second visit to Wakwalla that my own appreciation of its loveliness was somewhat dulled by the many visions of tropical beauty on which my eyes had feasted since I had first beheld it.

Nevertheless, it was with great pleasure that I accepted invitations from several kind friends in Galle and its neighbourhood, with the prospect of returning to Colombo by the lovely road along the sea-coast— a drive of seventy miles all shadowed by the graceful palms which droop right over the sea.

So the _Serendib_ sailed _minus_ one passenger, and I made my way to the farthest point of the ramparts to watch her safe out of the ill-fated harbour with her precious freight of truest friends. Afterwards I ascended the lighthouse, and thence looked down on the coral-reefs clearly visible through the shallow, lustrous, emerald-green waterreefs which come too near the surface for the safety of the harbour, as many a good ship has proved to her cost.[179]

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Footnote 179:

I am told that no less than twelve steamers have been wrecked in Galle
Harbour, _i.e._, more than one-third of the total number of
thirty-four which have been lost on the shores of Ceylon.

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But beautiful as is such a bird’s-eye view of the reef (which, when lighted by the rays of the noonday sun, gleams like a lost rainbow, held captive by water-sprites), its treasures of delight are only to be fully appreciated by floating over it at low tide, in a boat drawing only a few inches of water, and regardless of paint (for the sharp cutting points of the coral are fatal to a trig ornamental boat). Only thus is it possible to realise the loveliness of these submarine gardens, where coral-trees, coral-shrubs, and coral-flowers of every hue, violet and rose, red and brown, gold and lemon colour, are the homes and playgrounds of all manner of strange, beautiful fishes, crabs, sea-snakes, star-fish, sea-urchins, and innumerable other creatures, of every conceivable shape and size and colour.

Naturalists, however, note with interest the remarkable predominance of green in the colouring of many of these creatures, as though by assimilation to the prevailing verdure of the Isle. They find green water-snakes and green fishes, crustacea and star-fish, sea-anemones and sea-urchins, sea-slugs and several shells of various shades of olive or emerald greens, while a considerable number of corals are verdant as the plants they so closely resemble.[180]

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Footnote 180:

Such are the Montipora, Madrepora, Millepora, Macandrina, Astræa,
Alcyonia, Anthophylla, Heteropora.

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All too fleetly the pleasant days slipped by with drives and boating expeditions to many a lovely scene, and temptations for an artist on every hand. After one long morning in search of the best point for a panoramic sketch of Galle, I came to the conclusion that the very finest view of the town and harbour was that from the verandah of Closenberg, a delightful bungalow, where we landed at some risk, as the surf was running high and dashing in cataracts of spray against the black rocks. However, skilful steering ran our boat in safety between the biggest breakers, and I was soon most cosily ensconced for my day’s work.

Looking along the lovely palm-fringed shore, I could not but think that if man does ‘mark the earth with ruin’ in some places, as in the central districts of this Isle, and wherever primeval forests are cleared by planters beginning work, we often forget how deeply we are indebted to those of past generations for much of what we accept as natural beauty. As in New Zealand, Taheiti, and other isles, where imported vegetation is even more luxuriant than that which was indigenous, so here the improving hand of the foreigner has not been confined to acclimatising the beautiful flowering shrubs which adorn the gardens, but even the multiplication of the palms, which now seem so natural a feature of Ceylon, was really greatly due to the commercial instincts of the Dutch, who, finding that about nine-tenths of the west coast, from Galle right up to Calpentyn (the whole of which is now one succession of luxuriant cocoa-groves), was then waste uncultivated land, offered Government grants thereof to all persons who would undertake to plant cocoa-palms, and thereon pay a certain tax.

It would appear that strong pressure must have been brought to bear to awaken the easy-going natives to the necessity of carrying out this extensive scheme of cultivation of a crop which brings such slow returns (ten years to wait at the very least). However, the plantations were made, and the waste lands transformed to their present beauty. But even now the apathy of the villagers is such that, although the shore may be strewn with masses of seaweed, which, if collected and dug into the earth round the roots of the palms, would materially increase the crops, they will scarcely ever exert themselves to utilise the manure thus laid ready to their hand.

At Jaffna and Batticaloa, where the cocoa-palms are now ubiquitous, and might well be supposed to be indigenous, European planters only commenced work in 1841, and, as I have already shown, many of the early plantations ruined their first owners.

It is certainly remarkable how rarely the cocoa-palm is mentioned in old Ceylonese history; it is never alluded to as food, whereas the palmyra and taliput palms are frequently referred to. Not till the twelfth century is it named as a tree worthy of cultivation. At all events its merits are fully recognised in this nineteenth century!

At Galle the heavy rainfall, attracted by the neighbouring hill ranges (and which is three inches in the year in excess of that at Colombo, the respective measurements being ninety and eighty-seven inches), must always have favoured the luxuriant vegetation, and no tree is more gratefully responsive for an abundant supply of rain than is the cocoa-palm, of which it has been calculated that those bearing fruit in this district alone exceed 5,300,000. The total number of fruit-bearing palms on the shores of Ceylon is estimated at 50,000,000, besides 200,000,000 which are either unproductive or are forced to yield their life-blood in the form of toddy, chiefly for the manufacture of arrack. But it is estimated that, even at the low average of twenty-four nuts to a tree (and very many bear from sixty to eighty), one thousand millions of nuts are annually allowed to ripen for the good of man. Unlike the date, the cocoa-palm bears male and female flowers on the same tree—in fact, on the same cluster. The number of actually barren or male palms in Ceylon is singularly small, being said not to exceed one in three or four thousand.

I speak of this palm as belonging to the shore, for it is emphatically a coast tree, flourishing in a belt about fifteen miles in width. The places where it has been successfully planted inland are so few as to be quite exceptional. Such are Mihintale, the sacred hill near Anuradhapura, where groups of graceful palms wave around the great dagobas which crown the summit. I also saw large flourishing plantations in good bearing at Matele, which is about a hundred miles inland, and about 1,274 feet above the sea-level; they also bear well at Kandy, Gampola, Kurunegalla, and Badulla, all of which are far inland, and the latter 2,241 feet above the sea. A few scattered cocoa-palms have been grown as high as 3,500 feet, but these bear no fruit.

The Singhalese have a saying that this friendly palm cannot live far from the sea, or from the sound of the human voice, and in proof thereof point out that wherever you see a cluster of these tall crowns you are sure to find a human house not far off. And what can be more natural, seeing that each tree is somebody’s private and very valuable property,[181] the precious provider of ‘golden eggs’ in the form of material for all things needful to existence?

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Footnote 181:

Here is a case in point:—

‘MURDER ARISING OUT OF A CLAIM FOR A COCO-NUT TREE.—On September 11,
1890, Josappu, a tavern-keeper of Payyagala, was severely assaulted by
his cousin Bachappu and two others. The injured man was removed to the
Kalutara Hospital, where he died the following day. It would seem that
Josappu claimed a share of the profits of a coco-nut tree which
Bachappu was exclusively enjoying. The latter could not or would not
see the validity of his cousin’s claim. A quarrel ensued, with the
result aforesaid.’

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The half-ripe fruits (in their hard outer cover, green or golden, as the case may be) supply food of the consistency of jelly, and cool, refreshing drink in a natural cup. The older brown nuts (as we know them in Britain) give the hard white kernel, which is scraped as a flavouring for curry, or mixed with sugar (obtained from the sap) to make cakes, or else scraped and squeezed through a cloth to obtain delicious cream, which is excellent in tea when cow’s milk is not to be obtained. I believe that the Singhalese anoint their glossy black hair with a fine oil obtained by boiling this cream, but the regular oil of commerce is extracted from the kernel after it has been left to dry in the sun, when it is known as copperah

The small native oil-mills, or ‘chekku,’ as they are called, are of the rudest construction, and turned by bullocks. Being entirely made of wood, they creak in the most ear-splitting fashion, but they do their work so efficiently and so cheaply that, happily for all who appreciate primitive Oriental scenes, they hold their ground against the costly steam oil-mills, steam crushers, and hydraulic presses set up near Colombo by foreigners, so that about nine hundred of these quaint mills are still creaking and grinding in the southern and western provinces. (In 1876 it was stated that there were in the whole Isle 1,930 chekkus worked by bullocks, beside about a dozen steam mills with hydraulic machinery.)

Many of these chekkus are quite small, and worked by manpower, and very picturesque they are, with a miniature thatch of palm-leaves over the small vat containing the copperah, and perhaps two or three brown children perched on the long handle by which their father turns the vat, and so crushes out the oil. The clothing of such groups is reduced to a minimum, that of the children often consisting only of some charm against the evil eye or to protect them from devils. The refuse left after extraction of the oil is called poonac, and is either used as food for cattle and poultry or for manuring the soil.

No refining process is required beyond a week’s exposure to the sun, by which time all impurities will have sunk to the bottom, and the oil can at once be drawn off into casks. It is largely exported, to be used in the manufacture of soaps and lubricants, also in the preparation of stearine candles, and for these purposes is in increasing demand. In Ceylon it is much used as a liniment wherewith to rub the body in cases of rheumatism and other ailments, and the Tamils, not the Singhalese, habitually oil their bodies after bathing; but as regards light, the simple lamp formed of a cocoa-nut shell, and fed with cocoa-nut oil, is now very generally replaced, even in native huts, by a kerosine lamp, as the imported mineral oil, even after all its long journey from America, is cheaper than the native product.

It is not only in rheumatism that cocoa-nut oil is esteemed as a remedy; it is also applied to counteract insect stings, and when mixed with the juice of the leaves is used in cases of ophthalmia. Another sort of oil, extracted from the bark, is applied in skin diseases, and even the root yields a medicine for the fever-stricken. An astringent lotion, bitter as alum, is obtained from the flower, which also (when bruised in the manner I described when speaking of the palmyra-palm) yields toddy, vinegar, sugar, and, when distilled, the intoxicating spirit called arrack.

Toddy, which when first drawn in the early morning forms rather a pleasant drink, commences fermentation before noon, and is highly efficacious as a leaven for bread. After standing a few hours it becomes highly intoxicating, and is frequently made more so by adulteration with nux-vomica, seeds of Indian hemp, datura, and other poisons. A fine of fifty rupees is, however, incurred by any person detected in thus drugging either toddy or arrack.

But the simple mixing of toddy and arrack (_i.e._ the unfermented with the distilled juice of the beautiful cocoa-flower) produces a very ‘heady’ drink, on which a man can get exceedingly drunk for a very small sum; and sad to say, here as in Lower Bengal, where Buddhism and Christianity have successively done so much to break down the restraints of caste, that gain is in a measure neutralised by the fact that the sobriety once characteristic of the people is rapidly disappearing, and intemperance is grievously on the increase.

It is a sore subject that, whereas Hindoo, Mahommedan, and Buddhist conquerors have ever abstained from deriving any revenue from the intoxicating spirits which are forbidden by each of these religions, a Christian Government should so ruthlessly place temptation at every corner both in Ceylon and in India, where, as has been publicly stated by an Archdeacon of Bombay, the British Government has created a hundred drunkards for each convert won by Christian missionaries.

The toddy is converted into arrack in small local distilleries with copper stills capable of containing from 150 to 200 gallons, which is about the daily produce from a thousand trees, to which a small quantity of sugar and about one-third of rice is generally added. When distilled, a liquor is produced which is called polwakara. A second distillation produces talwakara, a spirit about twenty degrees below proof. When the process has been repeated a third time, arrack of the desired strength is obtained, at first very crude in flavour, but after having been stored in wood for several years it mellows, and even finds favour with Europeans. It is exported from Ceylon to Madras and served to the native troops as a daily ration.

The arrack trade is entirely under control of the Ceylon Government, which derives a considerable revenue from the sale of licenses to distillers (each of whom pays a yearly fee of one hundred rupees), and from the annual sale by auction of the right to farm arrack taverns in all parts of the Isle, a privilege which, being annually sold to the highest bidder, of course makes it to his interest to push the odious trade and establish fresh centres of temptation wherever he can possibly do so. Never was the old proverb that _l’occasion fait le larron_[182] better exemplified, and many a planter has good cause to complain of the temptation thus brought to the very door of his coolies, who now too often barter the very food provided for them, in order to obtain fiery liquor.[183]

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Footnote 182:

Opportunity makes the thief.

Footnote 183:

I see that, at the auction of arrack rents for 1890, the successful
bidder for the privilege of farming Kandy paid 43,000 rupees; Nuwara
Eliya fetched 70,000; while the whole of the Central Province was
knocked down for 380,000 rupees. All the provinces of the Isle
collectively realised 1,803,625, being an increase of 242,171 rupees
since 1888.

But ‘the appetite doth grow with that it feeds upon,’ and when the
rents for the Central Province were put up for sale by auction from
July 1891, to June 1892, with the strong recommendation of the
Government Agent to the renters to put in good bids, and not trouble
Government to call for higher tenders, his advice was so well received
that 470,000 rupees were offered for the lot, being 90,000 rupees in
excess of the previous year.

In further proof of the steady increase of this baneful traffic, I may
also quote the sales of arrack rents for the North-Western Province in
April 1891. At Kurunegala there was a large gathering of renters from
all parts of the island, the Government Agent presiding. There was
brisk bidding, with an exciting finish. The result was 112,200 rupees
for the district of Seven Korales (_i.e._ 14,700 more than last year);
Yagampattu and Chilaw districts, 102,000 rupees (_i.e._ 21,800 rupees
more than last year); and Puttalam rents were purchased for 35,900
rupees, being an advance of 4,000 on last year.

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Nor is this true only of the intoxicants natural to the country. Government holds a monopoly of the whole liquor traffic of the Isle, and has therefore a direct interest in pushing the sale of drink. Hence railway refreshment-cars and refreshment-rooms at railway stations are exempt from paying licence, and the stations themselves (which are Government property) are placarded with advertisements of the whisky which, as has been so truly said, has dug more British graves in Ceylon than malaria, sunstroke, and cholera put together, and there is no doubt that these widely scattered ‘suggestions’ are largely responsible for the practice of dram-drinking, which is said to be so much on the increase.

As regards the natives, who are always so largely influenced by any indication of the will of the ruling power, the mere fact that drinking-places are sanctioned by Government gives them a measure of respectability altogether contrary to unbiassed native opinion.

For plain speaking on so grave a subject, I may refer to the official report on the Negombo district for 1890, in which Mr. Lushington, Assistant Government Agent for the Western Province, expresses his deliberate conviction that by scattering arrack taverns broadcast over the land, Government is itself encouraging the real source of crime, namely, the habits of drunkenness which lead to gambling, cock-fighting, divers forms of theft, cattle-stealing, quarrels, and murders.

He finds that men who would not go a mile to procure intoxicants yield readily to the temptation when brought to their very doors, and while pointing out that more than half of the total revenue of the Western Province (apart from customs and railway receipts) is made up of licenses chiefly for the sale of intoxicants and such narcotics as bhang and opium, he proves that an increase in such revenue means simply a corresponding increase in demoralisation and every form of crime, and increased expenditure on its repression by police and legal machinery. ‘Rather than give up a few thousand rupees of revenue, we encourage the people to sink deeper and deeper in crime by increasing their facilities for drinking.’[184]

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Footnote 184:

I have here spoken only of the pushing of the trade in arrack. A very
much graver danger lies in the recent licensing of several opium dens.
Here we have indeed ‘a little cloud no bigger than a man’s hand,’ but
in view of the appallingly rapid extension of the use of opium in
India and Burmah, the small beginning may well alarm all who desire
the prosperity of Ceylon.

On the mainland, England, for the sake of ill-gotten revenue, is
actually creating and diligently propagating the fatal habit of opium
smoking. Even in Bombay (though the _cultivation_ of the poppy is
prohibited in that Province as being an industry resulting in
widespread demoralisation) upwards of 800 persons hold Government
licenses for the retail sale of opium, and each licence represents
several shops, the licensee being further required, under penalty of a
heavy fine, at once to open new shops at the bidding of the chief
magistrate of the district, should the latter see any new openings in
which the trade may be pushed.

On each licence is stated the lowest number of lbs. of duty-paid opium
which the licensee undertakes to sell per annum. Month by month he
gives in his report, and if the quantity sold is less than the amount
specified, he is fined five rupees per lb. on the deficiency. If in
the following month he can succeed in so pushing his sales as to
dispose of an equal amount in excess of his contract, the fine is
remitted. Should a rival offer to sell a larger quantity per annum,
his licence may be taken from him at three months’ notice, and given
to the more energetic salesman. Thus he is literally goaded on by the
paternal government to force the extension of this iniquitous traffic.

For instance, in the small district of Broach, with a total population
of 326,930 men, women, and children, the licensee undertakes annually
to sell by retail 12,492 lbs. (five and a half tons!) of poison. Two
years ago his sales were 2,000 lbs. less than his quantity, and the
consequent fine was 10,000 rupees.

In England a chemist may only sell an infinitesimal quantity of opium
without a doctor’s order. In India, any child may purchase ten tolas,
which is equal to 1,639 grains—a quantity sufficient to kill 270 men!

WELL MAY CEYLON PRAY TO BE LEFT FREE FROM SO GREAT A CURSE!

Copies of the Indian Opium Licence, with explanatory notes, may be
obtained gratuitously from Messrs. Dyer Brothers, 31 Paternoster
Square, London, E.C.

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Mr. Lushington believes that nine-tenths of the serious crimes of the Isle are committed within a mile of a tavern, and that quite one-half arise from the desperation caused by losses at gambling. He says that in the maritime districts every village has its cockpit, every group of villages its gambling den, and near to each is either a tavern or a place for the illicit sale of arrack.

And here comes in another grave difficulty, for in this strange Isle the very men who have purchased a monopoly for the sale of intoxicants are frequently in league with the smugglers and unlicensed arrack-sellers, actually sharing in their profits. Vigilant and conscientious indeed must be the police who could cope with such a state of things.

To return to the more legitimate uses of the good cocoa-palm. Another form in which the nut is used as food (a form, however, more appreciated in the South Seas than in Ceylon) is when, in the early stage of germination, the kernel is transformed into a puffy ball, quite filling up the shell.

The said shell furnishes the household drinking-cups, spoons, lamps, and musical instruments, if I may so describe the clattering castanets. The outermost husk serves as household scrubbing-brushes and fuel, while the thick fibre in which the nut is so securely embedded in the coir used for making ropes, cables, mattresses, nets, brushes, and matting. This is prepared by soaking the husks for a considerable time, if possible, in tanks or pits on the margin of the sea, as salt or brackish water improves the fibre, whereas steeping it in fresh water deteriorates it and creates an obnoxious smell. When thoroughly steeped, the husks are beaten with heavy wooden mallets and then dried in the sun The ropes are all made by hand-machinery, chiefly in the neighbourhood of Galle and Colombo, and are used for shipping, housebuilding, lashing bridges, tethering cattle, &c.

So securely is the nut embedded in this outer packing-case, that a hungry man, not provided with a hatchet and uninitiated in the method of extracting it, might very well be sorely tantalised in the midst of plenty. In fact, it requires considerable strength as well as some skill to tear off the hard covering.

For this purpose near every cocoa-grove strong wooden stakes are driven into the ground, leaving two or three feet above ground. Each stake is cut to a sharp point, and the man who has to skin a cocoa-nut takes it in both hands and violently dashes it on to the stake so as to impale it. Then wrenching it from side to side, he succeeds in tearing off the husk, and obtains the hard nut inside with the three eyes familiar to every British boy. On a large estate this forms a serious item of labour. It is said that the coir is less brittle and of a better quality if the nuts are plucked before they are fully ripe, and these also yield a larger proportion of oil.

Such are the principal uses of only the flower and fruit of this generous tree. When we come to reckon the very varied purposes to which every separate portion of the leaves, trunk, and root are applied, we find that the Singhalese enumeration of the hundred uses of their beloved palm is no figure of speech, but a practical fact.

As further varieties of food, the young buds, when boiled, are eaten as a vegetable something like cabbage, and when a tree is blown down or stricken with lightning, a sort of sago is obtained from the pith at the upper end of the trunk. Such windfalls are only too common, but deliberately to fell a fruit-bearing tree would seem too foolish, seeing that from the time a palm commences bearing, at about ten years of age, it yields its full crop annually for about eighty years.

In this region of terrific thunderstorms the value of these tall palms as lightning-conductors is inestimable, and many a home has been saved by their superior attraction.

The Singhalese say that you can build a house and furnish it, or build a ship and freight it, solely from the products of this palm. It would puzzle a European to build a seaworthy vessel without a single nail, but here square-rigged vessels, called dhonies, and large canoes, which resist the heaviest surf, are stitched together with coir yarn, which in salt water is almost imperishable. Small canoes are made from a single trunk hollowed out, and balanced by a smaller stem floating alongside; the cordage, mat-sail, and fishing-net are made of coir; the torch or chule which lights our night-march through the forest, or which the fisherman burns to attract fish, is made of dried palm-leaves.

As to the house, the palm trunk supplies all its woodwork, while its thatch is supplied by the leaves plaited so as to form a sort of long narrow mat called cadjan. Garden fences and even small huts are made entirely of these cadjans. From the leaf-stalk is formed the pingo or yoke which a man balances on his shoulder, with his fish or vegetables hanging from either end, or else it can be used as the handle for a cocoa-nut fibre broom. Its thick end answers as the paddle of a canoe, or if soaked like coir it furnishes a strong black fibre like horse-hair, from which ropes and fishing lines are manufactured. I must not forget to mention that cocoa-nut water mixed with lime produces a strong cement.

In short, as good George Herbert long ago pithily put it—

... The Indian nut alone
Is clothing, meat, and trencher, drink and can,
Boat, cable, sail, mast, needle, all in one.

Well may this grateful Isle adopt the cocoa-palm as the emblem on her coinage!

A very elegant use of the young leaves is in the decoration of pandals and churches, one tall leaf on each side of a window forming a very effective decoration. Of course, a cocoa-nut blossom is always an exquisite object, but besides the cruel wastefulness of sacrificing a whole cluster of embryo nuts, there is the disadvantage that to the native mind it suggests a charm against evil spirits, for which purpose it is placed over the cradle of the new-born babe, and over the grave of the newly buried.