Chapter VII: Nuwara Eliya

Spring foliage—Ironwood—Potato-tree—Rhododendron—The patenas—Horton
Plains—Lemon-grass—Lake Gregory—Gardens—Church—An exhilarating
climate—Various expeditions—Migration of butterflies—Descriptive
names— Nillo—Bees—Hak-galla Gardens.

Starting in the cool of early morning (preceded by sundry coolies burdened with my baggage) I walked up-hill to a point where the Governor’s carriage awaited me, the drive thence to ‘The City of the Open Plain’ being simply exquisite, the deep wooded gorge of a river something like our own beautiful Findhorn,[59] with dark peat-coloured water, and with foliage tints as vivid as ours in October, but having this advantage, namely, that the brilliant tints—primrose, gold, scarlet, deep crimson, claret, and tender green—are not, as in Britain or America, precursors of death and of leafless winter and frozen forests, but stages in progressive life, where the young scarlet, yellow, and orange coloured foliage of the ironwood and of some other trees turns crimson and purple, bronze and maroon, ere it settles down to the sober greens of maturity.

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Footnote 59:

In Morayshire; the loveliest river in Scotland, whose dark brown
waters flow through deep gorges clothed with birch and fir trees,
bird-cherry, wild-cherry, and alder, which in autumn turn scarlet and
crimson, green and gold.

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Such is the inverted order of things in this land of ceaseless summer, where autumn, winter, and spring are terms of no meaning, because Nature carries on her ceaseless work all the year round, and at the same moment that the forest trees cast their withered leaves, the young fresh foliage is continually bursting into new beauty.

Near Pussilawa we had halted fairly dumb with surprise at the gorgeousness of a whole ironwood-tree,[60] all vividly scarlet, save that its stem and boughs were entirely clothed by a brilliant glossy-green creeper. This pyramid of fire stood close to a large ‘potato-tree,’[61] so called because its blossoms are exactly like those of our common potato, only thrice their size; and when you see a tree the size of an average oak literally covered with these splendid purple and white blossoms it is something to remember, especially when you chance, as we did, to see beneath it a group of gaily dressed and bejewelled Tamil women and children.

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Footnote 60:

_Messua ferrea._

Footnote 61:

It belongs to the family of the _Solanaceæ_.

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But on the present occasion the ‘new sensation’ lay in the fact that I had attained the region of bright crimson rhododendron-trees, growing side by side with splendid daturas and real tree-ferns, the latter especially luxuriating in every damp ravine. This was quite the end of March, and the rhododendrons were only just beginning to show colour. They did not attain their full glory till the beginning of May, by which time a group of such trees, or a solitary old tree, perhaps forty feet in height, cutting clear against a blue sky, was truly a thing of beauty. I am bound to say, however, that I have seen many rowan-trees[62] in Scotland quite as richly laden with bunches of pure scarlet, and gleaming in the sunlight against as cloudless and blue a sky.

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Footnote 62:

Mountain-ash.

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The latter is by no means a marked characteristic of these mountain regions, where I was much struck by the prevalence of cool grey skies, frequent rain, and such misty effects as we are wont to associate with our Scotch Highlands. I am told that in October and November the sun scarcely shines for half an hour at a time, and that the cheerless fogs are really depressing. Nevertheless, the clear intervening days are the loveliest of the year. ‘The season,’ however, is from January to the end of May, during which time visitors abound.

As regards the date of the rhododendron flowering, I may mention that when, in the following year, I ascended Adam’s Peak at the end of January, I found the trees on the very summit in full beauty. They continue in blossom till about July. There are two distinct varieties. That which grows on the highest elevations, and is said to be peculiar to Ceylon, is a tall tree with small narrow leaves, silvery on the under side. It sometimes grows to a height of about sixty feet, and the twisted gnarled stem is often about eighteen inches in diameter. The commoner sort has broader leaves, which are brown on the under side. Here and there among the general scarlet, one sees a pink variety, and even a few rare trees whose pink blossoms are mottled with white.

The black peaty soil of Nuwara Eliya suits the rhododendron to perfection, and it grows freely along the banks of the main stream, which meanders through the plain, as also beside the numerous tributary rivulets.

I can never forget my first views of this Elysium when, after toiling steadily up-hill to the end of the eleventh mile from Rambodda, we reached the dividing summit 6,600 feet above the sea, which, in the exquisite morning light, lay clear on the horizon beyond a wide expanse of lowland, with the lovely river-gorge for a foreground. This was looking back. Then looking forward through a framework of most luxuriant and fragrant daturas, graceful tree-ferns, and many-coloured foliage, I beheld the charming valley still two miles distant, and about 400 feet lower than the summit where the carriage halted to let horses breathe and human beings admire.

Great must have been the surprise of the first Europeans who, when in pursuit of big game through the dense mountain forest, accidentally discovered this cool, delightful grassy plain, three miles in length and about eight in circumference, lying in the very heart of the mountains, about 6,200 feet above the sea. Singhalese and Hindoo legends account for its existence by saying that the monkey-god Hanuman set fire to this forest when he came to rescue the beautiful queen Sita, wife of Rama, from captivity in the hands of Ravana the demon-king. Hence the beautiful and romantic stream flowing from the plain towards Hak-galla bears the name of Sita Ella.

This, however, is but one of a series of high table-lands (growing only coarse lemon-scented grass, rhododendrons, and a few small shrubs) which lie at different elevations in the midst of this sea of mountain-ranges, like level terraces with precipitous edges, so that they have been likened to a succession of vast ledges. The highest of these, about twenty miles from Nuwara Eliya, and about a thousand feet higher, is known to Europeans as the Horton Plains (so called in honour of Sir Robert Horton), but to the Singhalese as the Maha Eliya or Great Plains, or, more literally, ‘The great cleared place.’

They form a level about five miles long by two broad, surrounded by low wooded slopes rising to 7,800 feet above the sea-level. The plains are clothed with rank bright green grass, buttercups, ground orchids, and ferns innumerable. In place of palms we have tall tree-ferns thirty feet in height, their slender black shining stems supporting a crown of fronds twelve feet in length.

Black peat soil favours the luxuriant growth of rhododendrons, and tufts of dwarf bamboo which border clear streamlets, one of which forms the Bilhool-Oya, which flows seaward through Saffragam. Here also rises the Maha-velli-ganga, which hence descends to the low country by a succession of rapids through narrow rocky gorges, each leading to another plain—in all, upwards of a dozen. At each of these the river is transformed from a wild headlong torrent to a broad calm stream, flowing peacefully through grassy levels—favourite pastures for wild deer.

It is a beautiful day’s ride from Nuwara Eliya through the forest and across the patenas, and then up Totapella to the pass, whence you look back on Nuwara Eliya far below, and then ride on a couple of miles through forests all bearded with golden moss, till you reach the Horton Plains ready for a sound sleep in a pleasant rest-house.

Here there is ample space for a very much larger sanatorium than Nuwara Eliya, upon far richer soil, and amid incomparably grander scenery, for all along the southern side it ends in precipitous cliffs, forming a perpendicular rock rampart of about 5,000 feet down to the primeval and still beast-haunted forest below. The plains comprise an extent of about twenty square miles of level or gently undulating land, with rich soil capable of growing anything. There is every reason to suppose that ere very long this must become the true mountain capital, and be to Ceylon what Ootacamund is to Madras—the Elysium to which wives and children of busy men may be sent for as complete a change of climate as is generally necessary. And by the creation of a new railway to Uva, they will be carried in luxurious railway carriages direct from Colombo to a station within three miles of these grand plains.

Even at Nuwara Eliya, which is a thousand feet lower, the pale children who have lost all their roses in the heat of the low country, quickly regain them and look the very picture of health; and thus they may safely be kept in Ceylon till about twelve years of age, when a return to British climate is generally recommended.

But, in truth, the doctors of the future will be able to select the exact elevation they deem desirable, for between the Horton Plains and Nuwara Eliya lie the Totapella Plains, about 700 feet lower than the former, while nine miles to the north of Nuwara Eliya, at a somewhat lower level, lie the grassy Elephant Plains; six miles to the west, still somewhat lower, commences the grand district of Dimboola, once forest-clad, but now all under cultivation.

Nine miles to the east of Nuwara Eliya, but about 1,500 feet below it, stretches the vast, thickly peopled district of Uva, which has been compared to the Sussex Downs on a gigantic scale, comprising as it does an extent of about six hundred square miles of undulating open grass-land, varied only by the rice-crops raised by the miserably poor and hitherto utterly neglected inhabitants of about eight hundred villages scattered over innumerable small valleys. Happily the grass which clothes this grand district is really rich short grass, easy to walk over—a very different matter from the enormously tall rank mana and lemon grasses which grow in the rich soil below forest-ranges. These far overtop the toiling human being who has to struggle through them, shutting out all breeze, while concentrating the sun on his luckless head; moreover, his hands are sure to be painfully cut by the sharp serrated edges of the grass.

These grand Uva downs are, as it were, a vast mountain terrace, built up above the lowlands, from which they are divided by a mighty boundary of precipitous crags.

Besides these there are several other grassy plateaux, such as the Elk Plains, the Maturata, the Moonstone Plains, the Kondapallé Plain, the Agra, and the Bopatalawa Plains, or Patenas as they are commonly called. They are of all sizes, and lie like islands in the midst of the surrounding sea of forest. The lemon and mana grass with which they are clothed, though affording fair pasture when young, rapidly grow up into coarse tufts seven or eight feet in height, most unpalatable to cattle, so the natives periodically set fire to it, when there ensues a glorious blaze. The sweeping flames rush on with a subdued roar and crackling, and showers of sparks, but so lightly as not to scorch the roots, which are fed by the charcoal thus produced, and only need a few days’ rain in order, phœnix-like, to renew their life, and then the blackened hills and plains are clothed with tenderest green, affording fair pasture till the grass again grows too coarse. While short it is gemmed with many a dainty flower. In the month of May true blue-bells of Scotland (campanula—_not_ blue hyacinth) abound, as also, on swampy ground, true golden buttercups. In some places the patenas are yellow with a ground orchid, suggesting a field of daffodils with a faint fragrance like primroses. In some places sweet violets grow freely.

In the late autumn, however, after the summer’s drought, the patenas are no longer beautiful, but all clothed with parched yellow grasses, with here and there broad blackened tracts marking where the shepherds have fired the grass for next year’s growth.

The natives prepare from the leaves of the lemon-grass a medicinal infusion with a bitter flavour and strong aromatic smell. From it also is manufactured the citronella oil of commerce, which, amongst other useful properties, is effectual in checking the growth of the fungus—a sort of luxuriant mildew—which works such ruin in museums and collections of all sorts.

The grass from which the oil has been distilled is valuable as fuel where firewood has become scarce owing to the wholesale destruction of timber. Now, however, it has been discovered that this refuse from the oil-factories can be turned to profitable account in the preparation of strawboard, for which there is an enormous demand for the manufacture of boxes in which to pack tea for the rapidly increasing export. Another article hitherto deemed useless is the mana-grass which grows so luxuriantly on the hills, from which it has recently been discovered that, with the addition of one-fourth of coarse waste-paper or old sacking, a strong flexible millboard can be prepared, much tougher and less brittle than that which is made from wheat-straw. So it appears that these long-despised grasses are likely to take a prominent place among fibre-yielding plants, and to start a new local industry.

These plains do not always exactly correspond to our interpretation of the word. For instance, the Totapella Plains are a most singular geological formation, the so-called plains being closely covered by several hundred grassy conical hills, each about a hundred feet high, like tumuli of the giants. A deep river winds circuitously amid these, and they are surrounded by forest-covered hills, a group of which occupy the centre of these very unlevel plains.

The soil of these patenas is generally dark and peaty, and the early settlers hoped that it would prove easy of cultivation; but they found that it was so unfertile that literally nothing would grow without such heavy manure as was too costly to be profitable, and that it really paid better to fell and clear forest land, even with the toil of rooting out every stump, one of which sometimes cost the work of two men for three days!

As we look now on the splendid crops of English vegetables—potatoes, peas, cabbages, carrots, turnips, and beans, the good strawberries and other fruits, and the luxuriant fields of sweet white clover, dear to the busy bees, it is hard to realise all the difficulties and disappointments which Sir Samuel Baker had to face and conquer, when in 1848 he and his brother resolved to establish a real English farm and village on the estate which still bears their name on the Moon Plains at the eastern end of Nuwara Eliya.

They took out a good English bailiff, a blacksmith, and about a dozen emigrants, with all manner of farm implements, machinery, grain, and animals, not forgetting a pack of fox-hounds. When with infinite trouble the soil had been prepared, the first crop of oats was devoured by elk and wild hogs, who here held grand midnight festivals. In like manner, the first crop of potatoes was entirely consumed by grubs. The animals almost died of starvation; twenty-six fine bullocks did die of some disease, and five fine Australian horses died the first year. However, patience and perseverance were rewarded in due time, and the scheme, which was at first deemed so foolish, ere long proved eminently successful, the naturally unfertile land being found capable, in response to very generous manuring, of yielding four crops of potatoes in the year!

Although the settlement is entirely a creation of the last sixty years, and there is no trace of any ancient building, there is some reason to believe that, like many other places in the Island, once populous and then totally abandoned, this verdant plain must at one time have been of some importance to the Kandyan kings. The steep descent towards Badulla is still known as ‘The Path of a Thousand Princes,’ and leads past ‘The Valley of Rubies,’ a name which suggests another hidden source of fame and profit in the days when gem-hunting was a royal monopoly. All these plains are studded with deep pits, telling of ancient as well as modern gem-diggers.

But the chief importance of the high levels in ancient days was their command of the water-supply for irrigation, which was led in every direction by most carefully constructed watercourses, aqueducts, and canals. Traces of these remain in many a spot now visited only by some chance sportsman, and hillsides once carefully terraced and cultivated have now relapsed to their original wild state.

Here it was that Donna Catherina, the child-queen of Kandy (so proclaimed by the Portuguese), found refuge when in later years she was driven from her stormy throne; but the place does not seem to have been visited by any European till Dr. Davy came here in 1819, after which it was forgotten, till rediscovered in 1826, when the Governor, General Barnes, at once resolved to establish a sanatorium here, with barracks and officers’ quarters, and to build a residence for himself, all of good solid stone-work. Barnes Hall is to this day one of the best houses in the little colony of from thirty to forty neat little villas and cottages—not bungalows as in the low country, but stone-built houses with chimneys, whose ‘reek’ is a very characteristic feature in the landscape. Each stands in its own pleasant garden, and these lie scattered on a succession of grassy knolls, all along the base of the wooded mountains in which the plain lies embosomed.

Right above it tower Kiklomanee and Pidaru-tala-galla; the latter, though not remarkable for beauty of form, is the highest mountain in Ceylon—height, 8,295 feet—and is happily still clothed with forest to the very summit—forest, moreover, which is all hardwood, for we are now quite beyond the region of palms, and there was not a pine or fir tree in the island till they were recently acclimatised in nursery gardens. Here rises the Nanu-Oya, which forms one of the affluents of the Maha-velli-ganga,[63] but which here is only a sparkling stream meandering through the valley. By means of an artificial embankment at the farther end, designed and carried out by Sir William Gregory, a marshy piece of ground, all reeds and rushes, has been transformed into a beautiful little lake which bears his name. (It is said that this whole valley must at some prehistoric time have been the bed of a mountain lake.)

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Footnote 63:

The true source of the Maha-velli-ganga is on Adam’s Peak.

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Thanks to the unwearied care of Mr. Le Mesurier, Lake Gregory, and also the streams which water the Horton Plains, are now abundantly stocked with carp and trout, some of the latter being over three pounds weight. The breeding-pond was dug out of solid _cabook_ (laterite), paved with pebbles, and lined with watercresses, under which the fry found refuge, and also insects to their liking, including tiny shrimps which abound in the mountain streams, as do also small crabs, which find favour with grown-up trout, but are dangerous to the fry.[64]

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Footnote 64:

Mr. Le Mesurier’s care for the fish-supply of the colony is not
confined to freshwater pools and streams. He has shown that an
inexhaustible harvest of excellent grey mullet, one of the best of
sea-fish, might easily be secured by a simple system of barriers to
protect the spawn and young fry, which are hatched in inlets so far
in-shore that during their infancy they might easily be thus guarded
from predatory fish and native fishermen.

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Otters also prove such formidable foes to all freshwater fish that a raid against them is now being made with a view to their extermination. It always seems hard that any interesting wild creature should have to be totally sacrificed for the preservation of game of any sort, whether finny, furred, or feathered, but it is certain that the Nuwara Eliya otters are doomed. On the other hand, there is good hope that if only they can be left undisturbed, the little grebe and other aquatic birds which have already discovered this new high-level lake may take to it as an habitual haunt, undisturbed by the stately swans which already float on the still waters.

A curious and unexpected benefit resulting from the formation of this lake, now swarming with fish, is a most marked diminution in the legions of bloodthirsty mosquitoes, which formerly bred undisturbed in the marsh. Now each individual carp and trout is on the _qui vive_ to secure for itself a share in that daintiest of morsels, mosquito larvæ; and seeing how surprising is the fecundity of the mosquito, it follows that each which is thus consumed represents the annihilation of a multitude of foes.

In his interesting book on ‘Tank Angling in India,’ Mr. H. S. Thomas says: ‘One female mosquito laying at the commencement of the year 100 eggs would at the end of the month be found the parent of 100 mosquitos, of which 50 would be females. In the second month 50 females laying each 100 eggs, would yield 5,000 larvæ. In the third month 2,500 females × 100 eggs = 250,000 larvæ. In the fourth 12,500,000 larvæ, and so on, until at the end of the twelve months there would be 488,281,250,000,000,000,000 larvæ.’

The lesson to be practically applied would seem to be that all mosquito-breeding tanks and pools should be cleaned, cleared of all predatory fish, and stocked with carp, which seem to multiply almost as rapidly as the mosquitoes, and will therefore supply never-failing armies to do battle with our foes.

The change of climate from Colombo to Nuwara Eliya is surprising. Here, within 7° of the equator, I believe the thermometer never exceeds 72° Fahr. at noon in summer, and at night it sometimes falls below freezing-point, so that in the early morning I have often seen the ground white with hoar-frost, and have been thankful for a thick plaid and a warm tweed dress, and this not only in the chill of frosty mornings and evenings, but even at noon on many a cold rainy day. Snow is, of course, absolutely unknown in Ceylon. For the first week after my arrival the rainfall was excessive, pouring as if the very heavens were coming down—pitiless pouring rain—and the ceaseless drip, drip, drip from the soaked thatch was most depressing. Weak corners were revealed by unsightly leaks; the ground was saturated, and the paths were all muddy rivulets. Sketching was hopeless, and I fully appreciated the reasons why houses here are built of stone and have fireplaces, with fires morning and evening, round which friends gather as naturally as if in Europe.

The heavy rainfall fills the numerous clear brown streams which rush down every ravine of the dark hills, and very gloomy these often seem when capped with gathering clouds and grey drift, clothing the green forests in sombre purple and blue shadows; but when the sun conquers, then you have a climate like that of our very loveliest summer days in Scotland: the crisp clear air is so marvellously invigorating and inspiriting that every breath is an elixir, and the mere fact of existence is a delight, renewed with every breath, of an atmosphere so exhilarating that even the feeblest folk find themselves endued with exhaustless energies.

Mornings, evenings, and moonlight are each more enchanting than words can tell, and all alike perfumed with the breath of English clover from cultivated fields, mingling with that of mignonette, musk, stocks, pansies, violets, lilies, carnations, phloxes, sweet-peas, honeysuckle, azaleas, and all manner of fragrant garden flowers; and you look up from gardens, where heavenly roses, geranium, fuchsia, chrysanthemum, camellias, and heliotrope are luxuriant bushes, to the beautiful mountains encircling the plain, where the sparkling rivulet winds about through thickets of wild roses, yellow wattle imported from Australia, golden gorse—real whins, exactly the same as our own, fragrant and home-like—with foxgloves, and blue-bells, brambles and bracken, growing side by side with the magnificent tree-ferns and the scarlet rhododendron-trees, and masses of snowy datura, the latter dipping in the stream their graceful boughs, heavy with the weight of beautiful trumpet-shaped blossoms. And of minor flowers, there are our own buttercup, foxglove, and common white clover, and white violets (which, however, are scentless), and a most fascinating wild passion-flower, pure white, and enfolded in a mossy calyx just like a white moss-rose.

Conspicuous among these wild plants are the osbekia, laden with lilac blossom, and the tall stiff spikes of a pink lobelia, and of a pale yellow mullen (the Aaron’s rod of our gardens, only twice as tall).

You must not imagine, however, that gardening even at Nuwara Eliya is all play. Were it only the ceaseless battle with divers insects, the work would be no sinecure. A gentleman who was admiring the glories of the gorgeous gladioli in the garden of the Grand Hotel in November, observed several women busy collecting black grubs, and was told that in the previous week they had collected on an average three thousand grubs daily in that one garden! And that is only one detail of trouble.

A week of perfect weather before Easter produced such a wealth of blossom as made church decoration a real pleasure, especially where there were so many willing hands to help. This year (1891) I hear the decorations were lovelier than ever, as you may judge by a few details. There were texts on backgrounds of moss or of scarlet; the font was decked with white arums, marguerites, daisies, and ferns; the chancel trellised with creepers, maiden-hair ferns, arum lilies, and scarlet geranium. In the chancel-window was a cross of Black Douglas geraniums, and the altar-rails were entwined with ferns and bunches of cream-coloured roses and crimson poppies. The pulpit and lectern were adorned with arum lilies, ferns, and crimson cacti, the reading-desk with cream-coloured carnations, arums, daisies, and ferns.[65]

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Footnote 65:

The thanksgiving services in June, at the Cathedral, Colombo, as the
equivalent of a ‘Harvest Home,’ were also pretty and characteristic,
the church being adorned with wreaths of the glossy green coffee and
cinnamon, with a profusion of pine-apples, shaddocks, brinjals,
bunches of oranges, lemons, and limes, green and yellow cocoa and
areca nuts, graceful pepper, and lovely nutmegs, and, in short, all
manner of tropical ‘fruits of the earth.’

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So the flower-angels had their full share as ministering spirits at the great festival:

O the beautiful flowers, the sweet fragrant flowers,
These dear loving smiles from our Father above;
To earth they are given to teach us of Heaven:
They bloom round our pathway to whisper of love,
THESE BEAUTIFUL SMILES OF GOD.

The pretty little cruciform church and the peaceful churchyard lie in a pleasant sheltered corner, surrounded by rhododendrons, daturas, and other flowering shrubs, and overshadowed by one grand old tree with a gnarled, twisted stem, such as one sometimes sees in miniature on very rank heather. At a little distance it is hard to believe that this is not a veritable stone-pine. I was told, however, that it is a eugenia, of the myrtle family. Happily, in the clearing of the forest on the lower hills a considerable number of these have been spared, and, together with groups of tall dark trees resembling cypresses, have all the effect of the non-existent pines and firs.

Of course, wherever Government makes its headquarters for the season, there white men and women congregate; and so during these spring months, until the end of May, each of the nest-like homes encircling the plain is well-filled, and a most cheery social life is kept up, picnics and races, games, balls, and dinner-parties enlivening both day and night. This continues until the end of May, when, the stormy south-west monsoon being almost due, the Cottage itself—_i.e._ the Governor’s house—is deserted, and his Excellency adjourns to Kandy, there to celebrate the Queen’s birthday. Then within a very few days this sweet spot is forsaken of the gregarious multitude, and those who do remain settle down to the peace and quietness of their pleasant highland homes.

Now that Nuwara Eliya, in common with most of the principal European stations in Ceylon, has started a golf-course, it has secured an additional all-the-year-round attraction in the eyes of many. But there certainly is no reason why it should ever be forsaken on the mere score of climate, for although howling wind, drizzling rain, and heavy white mists prevail in June and July, August has many warm, bright, clear days, and then till the end of November the climate is as variable as the same months would be in Britain; but with one singular advantage for Nuwara Eliya—namely, that, no matter what storms sweep over it and the hills towards Colombo, or how dark the clouds which rest on Hak-galla, there is sure to be a bright blue sky beyond it, telling of clear sunshine on the Uva hills and the country towards Badulla, so that anyone who wearies of rain has only to ride about four miles in that direction to find himself beneath a cloudless sky with all the mists behind him. Of course these green hills get their turn of rain in the other monsoon.

The great feature of ‘the season’ is the Jymkana, when as many of the planters as can possibly snatch a brief holiday from their estates flock to Nuwara Eliya, and of course try how much fun can possibly be crammed into the time. Nowhere have I ever met a whole community so thoroughly genial and hearty, or in which the affectation of _blasé_-ness is so totally unknown. As for any women-folk attempting to play the dowagers, the thing was impossible; for so many of these exiled Britons had ridden thirty or forty miles on purpose for a dance, that they would dance with one another rather than sit out, so, under such circumstances, feminine indolence would have been downright selfishness.

Nothing short of an atmosphere so amazingly invigorating as that of these mountains could enable any average mortal to get through so much exertion without fatigue. Perhaps I cannot prove this better than by quoting a few passages from my diary, first remarking that at that time there was only one carriage in Nuwara Eliya, so that almost everyone walked to and from all evening entertainments, and also that eight dances and divers other entertainments were crowded into three weeks. The presence of the band of the 73rd Highlanders was the chief incentive to such an outburst of frolic.

Here, then, is one morning: ‘Out sketching before daybreak, returning home at noon. Afternoon standing about at games. Dinner and dance till 2 A.M. Out sketching by 6 A.M.’

Another day: ‘Staying at Headquarters House—_i.e._ of the General in command. At 6 A.M. the Governor’s carriage came to take me to breakfast at the Cottage. Rode with his Excellency, by a somewhat steep jungle-path, to the top of “Pedro,” the highest mountain in Ceylon. Its real name is Pidura-tala-galla, which means “the mat-weaving rock.” It was so called on account of a sort of rush which was abundant here and was used for making mats.

‘From the summit we literally overlooked the whole Isle, the sea being clearly visible both to the east and west. Before us, as on a map, lay outstretched the intricate mountain-ranges clothed with dark-green forest,[66] brighter green marking the coffee plantations, and a still lighter tint the mountain meadows called patenas with silvery lines and glittering mirrors indicating streams and pools. In the wonderful stillness we heard the voices of many mountain torrents rushing tumultuously down the rocky ravines and gullies.

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Footnote 66:

Almost the whole of which has now vanished before the advance of the
planter’s axe.

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‘On the summit we found wild strawberry plants and forget-me-nots; and as we walked leisurely down the mountain, I gathered buttercups, yellow St. John’s wort, small geraniums, real “blue-bells of Scotland” (NOT blue hyacinths!) and a sort of ranunculus. Scented purple violets are sometimes found, but I sought for them in vain.

‘After breakfast drove back to Headquarters House, whence in the afternoon we all walked a mile to the races and back again, standing about all the afternoon. Walked to a dinner party at one house, whence the whole party walked to a ball at another. Thence at 4 A.M. all walked home across the plain in the most lovely moonlight. I was out again by 9 A.M. sketching till noon.

‘Up at 5 A.M. Rode to the top of Pedro, and sent the horses back. Sketched as much as was possible of that vast panorama, with Adam’s Peak conspicuous above the many mountain-ranges, and a somewhat desolate foreground of ghostly dead trees, scorched by some accidental fire, but still standing, bleached by many a wintry storm and summer sun, and bearded with long trails of grey moss and lichens. But the view from a mountain top is not very sketchable, being rather suggestive of a petrified ocean, as if liquid waves had been suddenly transformed to solid rock ridges, fixed and immovable.

‘Walked back, a distance of four miles, and found all the party busy decorating the ball-room, in which I gave a helping hand. Dancing till 4 A.M. Out sketching beside the river by 9 A.M.’

One lovely morning we started early—a very pleasant party—to ride twelve miles through the loveliest jungle to Ragalla, where it had been arranged that we should all sleep in a tiny bungalow built by a planter who had just commenced clearing a coffee estate. Such a scene of havoc! The lovely jungle ruthlessly burnt down, and the charred and blackened trunks of huge old trees lying on the ground, their grand boughs all turned to charcoal, slowly feeding the wretched little coffee shrubs which were planted all over the ground.

After luncheon the Government Agent invited me to come and see a grand view of the Maturata Plains; it was some way off, but he didn’t know how far. Being quite fresh, I was of course ready to see as much as possible, so we started, riding the first four miles, till the road became impassable for horses, so we had to walk the rest of the way, which proved to be four miles more! (In Britain in my best days, a three-mile walk has always been my full day’s work, so you see what credit belongs to this glorious climate of Nuwara Eliya!)

Happily my kind friend had had the forethought to send up a chair on poles, and coolies to carry me; so after thoroughly enjoying the magnificent view, in all the grandeur of a most awesome thunder-storm, I was carried down. Long before we got through the jungle it was pitch-dark, and we had to halt while the coolies manufactured _chules_— _i.e._ torches like small fagots of dried sticks, which they feed with frequent applications of cocoa-nut oil.

In the morning we all started at 6 A.M., the rest of the party having to return direct to Nuwara Eliya; but I halted by myself for some hours _en route_ to secure a sketch of a lovely jungle scene. Of course I was not literally alone, for here, as in India, every horse-keeper is always bound to be in attendance on his own horse, and is supposed to keep up with the rider, whatever may be the pace, and very hard running that involves, even when humane new-comers make excuses for dawdling, to give them a chance, especially after an irresistible canter.

Whenever one leaves the beaten track one is of course liable to find jungle paths in a very dubious condition. Of this we had good experience one day, when a friend undertook to guide me to a very fine sketching-point beyond the Elk Plains. So we started, as usual, at 6 A.M., and rode round the back of beautiful Hak-galla and across the patenas, which, having been recently burnt, were in all the loveliness of the freshest young green, but fringed with scorched jungle.

We expected to reach our destination before 9 A.M., but to our unmitigated disgust found that the jungle-path had never been over-hauled for six years! and the distance proved to be upwards of twelve miles. We could not go beyond a slow walk the whole way, and I had literally to dismount upwards of twenty times to let the horse be led over impracticable bits of broken bank.

At 1 P.M. we had not reached the point where my companion had purposed leaving me for the day, so there was nothing for it but to rest awhile and then retrace our ground. That was indeed an exhausting day, nine and a half hours in the saddle, only varied by the fatigue of incessantly mounting and dismounting. To add to the situation, a tremendous thunderstorm came on, which certainly was very grand, but followed by such downpouring rain as was supremely disagreeable; for it was not nice returning to civilised life like drowned rats to meet all the smart people taking their walk in the beautifully clear evening.

(It really is extraordinary to see what trouble people do give themselves, even in Paradise, to keep up with the changes of the very latest fashions—all the newest Parisian millinery, dresses from Worth, and kid gloves fresh by every mail! Common-sense and comfort plead alike in favour of no gloves and the simplest attire, in a climate whose warm moisture promotes such rapid vegetation that a very few days suffice to mildew gloves and silk dresses, and to coat boots and broadcloth with fungus half an inch in length! Clothes of all sorts are ruined unless they are perpetually being aired in the sun, and clothes left lying by are simply destroyed. Consequently, for people living in remote parts of the country, a visit to Kandy or Colombo involves grave considerations as to the adorning of the outer man or woman!)

Here, as in most hilly districts, there is a good deal of swampy morass in the hollows, and one of the dangers to be avoided in riding along vague tracks is that of getting bogged in soft peaty soil, a most disagreeable experience which I narrowly escaped while riding up Mount Kiklomani. We came to a bit of dubious-looking ground, and I fortunately insisted on getting off, for it proved to be a most treacherous bog, in which a moment later the poor beast was floundering, and was only extricated with much difficulty. I was truly thankful that the owner himself was there in charge, for, indeed, the anxious responsibility of riding a borrowed horse is serious, and some of the difficult jungle-paths, and those along the face of steep hillsides, did try my nerves to an unwarrantable extent, and a small stumble often made me hotter than I would have cared to confess.

Of pleasant picnics, large and small, there was no end. One was beside a lovely still pool, fed by a rippling stream working its way among moss grown boulders; on the pool shone the snowy cups of a multitude of floating lilies, deeply shaded by the overhanging foliage—an ideal of sleepy loveliness. Blue and green dragon-flies, and occasionally a scarlet one, hovered over the lilies or skimmed across the pool, and butterflies of gorgeous hue assembled (holding parliament, we said) in the cool damp of many a shady green nook.

The butterflies of Ceylon are so beautiful and so varied as to be at all times a joy, whether seen singly, when one glorious creature seems for a moment to have the garden to himself, or in companies of radiant joyous little beings. One of the mysteries of the Isle is the annual migration in November and December, and at intervals right on to February, of countless myriads of butterflies in vast flights; whence they come and whither going, no one can guess.

The migration commences with the setting in of the north-east monsoon, with its cool mornings and bright days; and when the stormy wind blows strongest, these delicate insects, impelled by some inexplicable instinct, force their way against it, and during a couple of months successive legions pass on like an ever-flowing stream. I have collected a few notes of observations made on this subject in different years.

Thus, in 1884, swarms of dark-coloured butterflies passed over Kandy and Ratnapura on November 19. On the following day these were succeeded by swarms of white and yellow ones.

In 1887, Mr. Le Mesurier, writing from Nuwara Eliya, noted the first flight of the season on November 18. The flight lasted the whole day; direction from due south-west to north. Wind from south-west. Colour of butterflies, speckled dark brown.

The next flight he noticed was on November 21, when two kinds of butterflies, white and sulphur, continued all day passing right over the summit of Pedro from north to due south. The direction of the wind was from the north-east.

On December 10 another observer stated that brown and white butterflies had been in flight for some days, flying south.

In 1888 the migration northward in the teeth of the wind was observed at Colombo on November 18, the great flight of white and yellow butterflies being mingled with some of a darker colour.

In 1889, flights were observed in the mountain district of Dimbula, about the middle of October, and at Colombo on November 5, when dark-brown butterflies and yellowish-white ones flew in separate columns at a rate of about ten miles an hour.

All the accounts (which might be multiplied by observations from all parts of the island, north, south, east, and west, from Manaar to Galle, and from Trincomalee to Negombo) speak only of brown, white, and yellow insects; hence I infer that the glorious butterflies which most delighted us do not risk becoming food for fishes by any such venturesome flights. There is one lovely creature with black velvety wings spotted with crimson, and measuring about four inches from tip to tip; while another, likewise robed in black velvet, has brilliant yellow spots on the under-wing; and yet another of the sombre sort has black velvet upper-wings with lovely blue under-wings. Others are of a lustrous pale-blue, or a rich metallic purple or green, and some are pure white. The most delicate of all has semi-transparent wings, and is so exquisitely refined that it is generally known as the sylph.

Then at sunset these radiant creatures disappear, and handsome hawk-moths and humming-bird moths dart to and fro in the twilight, to be succeeded an hour later by various night-moths, whose beauty is lost to us in the darkness, their presence only revealed by a rushing flight, too often in the direction of lamps and candles. Many of the moth and butterfly caterpillars are exceedingly handsome and brightly coloured. All these, however, are far more abundant in the low country than in this cooler region.

Many fascinating birds also did their part in giving life and colour to the beautiful scene, a specially lovely family being the jays with their brilliantly blue body and tail, and golden-sienna head and wings. They go about in flocks of six or eight, and are very shy of human beings, so they are warily silent while on the ground feeding on beetles, but make up for this by harsh croaking cries when on the tree-tops.

One of the favourite amusements at Nuwara Eliya was ‘gemming’—_i.e._ devoting a day to washing gravel in various places where it was likely that moonstones and garnets might be found. It was scarcely to be expected that this playing at work would prove very successful, but amateur seekers are easily pleased, and they invariably brought home a certain number of promising crystals, some of which it was hoped might turn out treasures; in fact, several unusually fine moonstones were found in the gravelly bed of some of the streams. These when polished certainly are lovely stones, of a lustrous pearly white, really suggestive of moonlight, and when set in silver they make charming ornaments. But, in common with garnets and amethysts, they are little valued, simply because they are abundant.

We had a very pleasant picnic, enlivened by the 73rd band playing Scotch music, on some grassy downs known to the British as the Bully-hilly Patenas, which I need scarcely say is not their real name, but one of those senseless approximations to sound in which the Anglo-Saxon delights, and by which the really descriptive native names are so ruthlessly superseded. For instance, what can be more detestable than ‘Mutton Button’ as the name for a beautiful hillside visible from Kandy? Yet this is the foreigner’s corruption of Mattena Patena, ‘the shining meadow.’

And many of the native names afford a clue to ancient legends or topographical changes: thus, Yakka-galla is ‘the demon’s rock’; Dee-wuran-gaha, ‘the tree of the oath,’ marks the spot when once stood a very sacred bo-tree; Nuga-talawa is ‘the banyan-tree plain’; Bogaha-watte tells of another bo-tree felled by ruthless planters; Kehel-watte suggests the wild plantains of olden days. At Malegawatenne, ‘the palace-flat,’ tradition affirms that Ravanna the demon once had a palace; now it is a rice-field through which flows a river. Nanda-nodiyana, ‘the pleasure-ground,’ is the name of a mountainous district to the east of Nuwara Eliya, in which the aforesaid demon (or deified hero) is supposed to have taken delight. The Malwatte-oya is the river of the Garden of Flowers; the Kalu-ganga is the Black River. The Maha-velli-ganga is the Great Sandy River; the Dik-oya is the Long River. Hak-galla is said to be a contraction of Yakkada-galla, and to mean ‘the iron rock.’ Certainly the amount of iron in the soil of the district is remarkable, and sensibly affects vegetation, being excellent for tea but destructive to cinchona; but I think Hak-galla is much more likely to be another ‘demon’s rock.’

Mandara-nuwara, ‘the city of the shadow,’ is the very poetic name of a village in a gloomy valley at the base of Pidura-tala-galla. (I have already mentioned that the name of this mountain describes the rushes there gathered for weaving mats.) Monara-galla describes the Rock of the Peacock. Bintenne, so frequently referred to in sporting annals, is difficult to locate till we realise that the name simply describes sloping wooded foot-hills, answering to the Terai of India. What a new interest attaches to the Laxapana estate in Maskeliya when we learn that it derives its name from Laxapana-galla, ‘the mountain of the hundred thousand lamps,’ so called because at its base bands of pilgrims to Adam’s Peak congregate and at midnight light their lamps, preparatory to ascending the holy mount, so as to reach its summit before the rising of the sun! But I need not multiply examples to endorse my protest against the useless vulgarising of descriptive names.

Of course half the charm of every expedition lay in hunting for new wild-flowers, and great was the pleasure of discovering the ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ backed ferns of our greenhouses, growing wild in profusion. Calceolarias and red and white balsams had also the interest of being old friends, but one of my chief jungle treasures was altogether new to me, a wax-like lilac-pink creeper, which clings like a veil to the very top of many a tall forest-tree, but is so capricious in its growth that, though several planters told me they had tried to induce it to live when transplanted to their gardens, none had succeeded in doing so. Each blossom is the size of a florin and has four petals. I was told its name was Kandrikia Walkerii.

A less ambitious beauty is the water-balsam, which grows in many of the streams; the Singhalese call it _diya nilla_, and say that its crushed leaves are as efficacious as a mustard-poultice, and very beneficial in cases of neuralgia and lumbago. Owners of white skin, however, are warned that these easily prepared blisters leave a black stain which is not ornamental, but may be lessened or prevented by placing a piece of linen next the skin.

Much to my regret, I did not see these high jungles in their fullest glory, for that only occurs once in seven years, when a whole clan of flowering shrubs (of the _Strobilanthes_ family), called by the Singhalese _nillo_, burst forth into most fragrant blossom. Some of these are delicate dwarf plants, others have a stem as thick as a man’s arm, and grow to a height of about twenty feet; all are jointed canes growing in single stalks, and bear their honeyed blossoms in clusters round the joints. The different varieties bear white, blue, red, and purple flowers, while some are parti-coloured, crimson and white. To add to the charm of the forests at this season, there is often an undergrowth of gorgeous scarlet and yellow blossoms, gleaming like fire among the jointed roots of the nillo.

These slim and perfectly upright stems form a dense underwood in many of the mountain forests, and this, in the case of the species which grows to about twenty feet in height, is so thick as to be almost impenetrable. Elephants force their way through it, leaving long lanes which often prove very convenient to puny human beings. Its only foliage is on the extreme summit, where a few small branches bear the leaves, and every seventh year, in the early spring, produce rich clusters of white and purple blossom, so fragrant as to perfume the whole atmosphere with a scent of honey, attracting large swarms of bees, which appear as if by magic in jungles where, perhaps, scarcely one has been in the previous six years.

To save themselves time and trouble, the bees, of which there are four different sorts in Ceylon, construct their nests in hollow trees or holes in the rock. One suspends a small nest no bigger than an orange from the boughs of a tree, offering a tempting prize both to bears and men. The latter prepare torches of green leaves, and with their heavy smoke stupefy these poor workers, whose well-filled honeycombs they can then abstract, carrying them to market in hollow gourds slung on ropes. The combs differ in size and in quality according to the manufacturer— for the four varieties of honey-bees vary from one kind the size of a hornet, to another smaller than our housefly.

One of these, _Apis dorsata_ (which is also found in Java), is said to be the largest and longest-tongued of all bees, and the only one able to extract the honey from certain flowers in which it lies deeply seated, just as in Britain only the bumble-bee can reach the honey concealed in the long tubes of the red-clover blossom.

Speaking of hornets, those of Ceylon are very large, and have reddish-brown wings, and a most ferocious sting. They make themselves useful by eating cockroaches, but are dreaded by the lightly draped natives, whom they sometimes attack savagely. I am told that when natives are attacked by wild bees, if there are any castor-oil bushes in the neighbourhood, they run to take shelter in them, as the discriminating bees avoid those handsome shrubs.

The marvel is that they are not attacked more frequently, as a common way of taking honey is simply to blow into the nest, when the astonished bees fly out, and the robber quietly appropriates the honey. Of the abundance of honey thus obtained one may form some idea from a fact mentioned by Sir Samuel Baker—namely, that having given a native permission to hunt for honey in his forest on condition of bringing him the wax, the hunter in a very few weeks brought seventy-two pounds of pure white wax made up in large balls. Sir Samuel assumed that the amount really taken was probably at least double this.

When the bees have had their day among the nillo blossoms, then comes the turn of flocks of pigeons, squirrels, rats, and other creatures, who congregate to celebrate their septennial festival of nillo nuts, which are as pleasant to the taste as was the delicious fragrance of the blossom to the sense of smell.

The nut festival being over, the whole of the nillo dies, leaving only a standing array of tall leafless poles. Ere long these decay and fall to the ground, and the forest then presents the curious appearance of having no underwood, save confused piles of dead sticks. Soon, however, a fresh crop of young nillo springs up, in succulent verdure, very attractive to elk and other deer, who do their best to thin the too luxuriant growth. Enough, however, escapes them to secure a renewed promise of perfumed forests, when six more years shall have rolled away.

Several of the larger kinds of bamboo share this peculiarity of only flowering periodically and gregariously; the smaller bamboos flower annually, but the very graceful kind[67] which adorns the swamps on the high patenas all seem to attain maturity simultaneously, and then ‘the grace of the fashion of it perisheth,’ and for a while the swamps are strewn only with prostrate withered stems, till a new generation arise and start fair on their little span of life.

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Footnote 67:

_Arundinaria densifolia._

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About five miles to the east of Nuwara Eliya rises the majestic mountain of Hak-galla—a very conspicuous feature as seen from the settlement, towering beyond Lake Gregory, and especially fine as seen from Baker’s farm looking down on the intervening grassy valley. It is a grand massive pile about 7,000 feet in height, all forest-clad, with deeply indented saddle, the seaward face descending to the vast plains of Uva in almost precipitous crags.

Nestling at the base of one of these crags, which towers above it in a sheer precipice of 1,600 feet, lie the Government Botanical Gardens, 5,400 feet above the sea-level. They are not only beautiful for situation, but very beautiful in themselves, and commanding a magnificent view of the hills and valleys of Uva. The gardens lie on a steep slope facing north-east, sheltered by the great crag from tempestuous monsoon blasts, and always subject to ample rainfall. Like the mists which watered Eden, so here mists roll up from the low country dreamy and still, and float spirit-like, enfolding each separate tree and shrub in a cool filmy veil.

Here experiments are made as to the possibility of acclimatising plants from tropical mountains and from the plains of temperate lands—America, Europe, and Australia—so you come on all manner of surprises. There are flourishing young pine-trees from the Himalayas, cypresses and cedars (cryptomerias) from Japan, araucarias and plane-trees from Australia, and all manner of European fruit-trees, peaches and plums, apple and pear trees. As to Australian gum-trees, which were grown here in the first instance, they have fairly taken possession of the land, and are now grown for fuel on estates where all the natural forests have been wholly swept away.

Here I saw fine experimental plantations of cinchona (quinine), which soon afterwards came so gallantly to the front, when King Coffee had come to utter grief. But the reign of cinchona proved all too brief, its very triumph proved its undoing, and the market was so effectually glutted that its price would not pay for its cultivation. Growing among it were masses of wild fuchsia—the sort with a long scarlet tube. And in every direction there were flowers, flowers, flowers—roses, irises, lilies, and a multitude of others, with here and there open spaces of green turf and ferns.

Right above this towered the majestic crag, and in a cleft of the rock something is pointed out which is said to be the skull of an inquisitive elephant, who, not satisfied with climbing to the top of the mountain forest, must needs look over the precipice, and lost his balance. Certainly elephants seem to take an unaccountable pleasure in climbing mountains which one would imagine to be inaccessible to them. Both Major Skinner in 1840 and Hoffmeister in 1844 record having found the unmistakable proofs of elephants having climbed almost to the very summit of Adam’s Peak, up and down those steep paths which human beings find so difficult; and Major Forbes-Leslie says that he has known three instances, in the Matele district alone, of elephants being killed by falling down precipices.

Sir Samuel Baker used frequently to come on the tracks of elephants ‘on the precipitous sides of jungle-covered mountains near Nuwara Eliya, where the ground is so steep that a man is forced to cling to the underwood for support,’ and where the jungle was so dense that neither man nor elephant could see a yard before them. He observed that their immense weight resting on such large feet, with their edging of sharp horny toes, fairly cuts steps on the almost precipitous hillsides; and moreover, whether ascending or descending, the wise beast invariably moved by zigzags, and thus lessened the abruptness of the incline.