nder as a deer. They appear to have
neither the strength nor weight requisite for this service; and yet the
entire coffee crop of Ceylon, amounting annually to upwards of half a
million hundred weight, is year after year brought down from the
mountains to the coast by these indefatigable little creatures, which,
on returning, carry up proportionally heavy loads, of rice and
implements for the estates.[1] There are two varieties of the native
bullock; one a somewhat coarser animal, of a deep red colour; the other,
the high-bred black one I have just described. So rare was a white one
of this species, under the native kings, that the Kandyans were
compelled to set them apart for the royal herd.[2]

[Footnote 1: A pair of these little bullocks carry up about twenty
bushels of rice to the hills, and bring down from fifty to sixty bushels
of coffee to Colombo.]

[Footnote 2: WOLF says that, in the year 1763, he saw in Ceylon two
white oxen, each of which measured upwards of eight feet high. They were
sent as a present from the King of Atchin.--_Life and Adventures_, p.
172.]

Although bullocks may be said to be the only animals of draught and
burden in Ceylon (horses being rarely used except in spring carriages),
no attempt has been made to improve the breed, or even to better the
condition and treatment of those in use. Their food is indifferent,
pasture in all parts of the island being rare, and cattle are seldom
housed under any vicissitudes of weather.

The labour for which they are best adapted, and in which, before the
opening of roads, these cattle were formerly employed, is in traversing
the jungle paths of the interior, carrying light loads as pack-oxen in
what is called a "_tavalam_"--a term which, substituting bullocks for
camels, is equivalent to a "caravan."[1] The class of persons engaged in
this traffic in Ceylon resemble in their occupations the "Banjarees" of
Hindustan, who bring down to the coast corn, cotton, and oil, and take
back to the interior cloths and iron and copper utensils. In the
unopened parts of the island, and especially in the eastern provinces,
this primitive practice still continues. When travelling in these
districts I have often encountered long files of pack-bullocks toiling
along the mountain paths, their bells tinkling musically as they moved;
or halting during the noonday heat beside some stream in the forests,
their burdens piled in heaps near the drivers, who had lighted their