bat-like from the giant bamboos a hundred feet from the earth,
were sleeping away the day, while soaring above the trees were hundreds
of these queer objects, scolding like disturbed crows.

[Illustration: TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS]

Peradeniya's visitors come from every land in the world, some traveling
great distances to see the wonders of the garden. One has not to be
arboriculturist or botanist to appreciate the establishment; it is
always entertaining, sometimes amusing, and appeals variously to the
tastes of visitors. For example, the Mexican goes involuntarily to the
aloe from which his beloved pulque is made, the Egyptian to the
date-palm, the Connecticut man to the nutmeg grove, and the New Yorker
to the tree under which handfuls of cloves may be scooped up without
charge, whereas at home they are acquired one at a time at considerable
expense.

Explore the highways and byways of Kandy keenly as one may, nothing is
in evidence explaining its manifest prosperity--the place has no
distinctive product or business. It is the seat of management, however,
of the island's greatest industry--tea raising.

In Ceylon tea is "king." This being the fact, no visitor to the town
where the Planters' Association has its administrative machinery can
close his ears to tea talk. Elsewhere people talk over their tea-cups;
in Kandy, they talk tea over every other kind of cup. Kandy's big hotel
bristles with planters in overspreading sun hats, as do club and
friendly bungalow verandas. Some are "down" for a day (and a night) from
up-country estates, while others are "up" from smallish properties at
levels below Kandy. Nearly all have to purchase supplies and draw a few
sacks of rupees from the bank with which to pay off their coolies. But
some have come to discuss market conditions and prospects with their
agents. A few, not yet wholly emancipated from the social side of life
in which they were reared, have journeyed to Kandy to rub shoulders for
a few days with civilization.

The orbit of each and every one of these transplanted Britons is tea,
and this in its primal form. They can have no concern with Steel common.
Amalgamated copper or Erie 4's, and to them the jargon of stock
exchanges would be as meaningless as Sanskrit platitudes. Their
speculative medium is tea--tea in bulk, and pretty large bulk at that.

The daily cable from London summarizing the tea market interests each of
these men as vitally as the tale