r such feelings on the sight of a venerable
wood, old, to appearance, as the soil it stood on, and beautiful beyond
what pencil can describe, annihilated for the temporary use of the space
it occupied. It seemed a violation of nature in the too arbitrary
exercise of power. The timber, from its abundance, the smallness of
consumption, and its distance in most cases from the banks of navigable
rivers, by which means alone it could be transported to any distance, is
of no value; and trees whose bulk, height, straightness of stem, and
extent of limbs excite the admiration of a traveller, perish
indiscriminately. Some of the branches are lopped off, and when these,
together with the underwood, are become sufficiently arid, they are set
fire to, and the country, for the space of a month or two, is in a
general blaze and smoke, until the whole is consumed and the ground
effectually cleared. The expiring wood, beneficent to its ungrateful
destroyer, fertilises for his use by its ashes and their salts the earth
which it so long adorned.

Unseasonable wet weather at this period, which sometimes happens, and
especially when the business is deferred till the close of the dry or
south-east monsoon, whose termination is at best irregular, produces much
inconvenience by the delay of burning till the vegetation has had time to
renew itself; in which case the spot is commonly abandoned, or, if
partially burned, it is not without considerable toil that it can be
afterwards prepared for sowing. On such occasions there are imposters
ready to make a profit of the credulity of the husbandman who, like all
others whose employments expose them to risks, are prone to superstition,
by pretending to a power of causing or retarding rain. One of these will
receive, at the time of burning the ladangs, a dollar or more from each
family in the neighbourhood, under the pretence of ensuring favourable
weather for their undertaking. To accomplish this purpose he abstains, or
pretends to abstain, for many days and nights from food and sleep, and
performs various trifling ceremonies; continuing all the time in the open
air. If he espies a cloud gathering he immediately begins to smoke
tobacco with great vehemence, walking about with a quick pace and
throwing the puffs towards it with all the force of his lungs. How far he
is successful it is no difficult matter to judge. His skill, in fact,
lies in choosing his time, when there is the greatest prospect of t