been made to establish sugar plantations, but the soil
or the climate, or both, proved to be unfavorable to the growth of the
cane. Natives, here and elsewhere, raise a few hills of it about their
cabins, which they chew for its sweetness, when the stalk becomes
sufficiently ripe; it is especially the delight of children, under
this condition. With the aid of proper fertilizers there would seem to
be no good reason why sugar-cane could not be profitably grown in
Ceylon.

The species of palm familiarly known as the jaggery palm is largely
cultivated in the central province of the island. Its sap is boiled
down so as to produce a coarse brown sugar, which is much used by all
classes in its crude state. Why it is not refined for more delicate
purposes, since the sugar-cane is not available, it is impossible to
say. Farina is also extracted from the pith of this palm, forming, as
is well known, a very palatable and nutritious food. The indolent
natives must be spurred by foreign enterprise into obtaining this
valuable article of export, before they will labor to procure it.
Open-handed Nature, in her bounteous liberality, spoils these heedless
children of the tropics.

Near Kurunaigalla, one of the ancient capitals of the island, situated
about sixty miles northeast of Colombo and ten or twelve miles north
of Kandy, there are some very interesting ruins, together with
several enormous boulders of red rock, which somehow strike one as
being very much out of place. They are too enormous to have been
transported by glacial action, by which method we account for the
position of so many big boulders in the northern portions of our own
continent. One of these in the neighborhood we are speaking of is
called "The Elephant's Tusk," towering six hundred feet into the air;
but why it is thus named is not obvious. There are very old plumbago
mines hereabouts, and a group of mouldering stone lions, elephants,
and a figure designed to represent that fabulous creature, the
unicorn. These recall somewhat similar groups one sees in the wilds of
continental India, mementos which are believed to antedate by ten or
fifteen centuries the origin of the famous "buried cities" of Ceylon.

CHAPTER XIV.

Fifty Miles into Central Ceylon.--Gorgeous Scenic
Effects.--Gampola.--The Singhalese Saratoga.--A Grand
Waterfall.--Haunts of the Wild Elephants.--Something about
these Huge Beasts.--European Hunters restricted.--An I