es have been thus lashed together by the interlacing climbers,
the practice is to cut halfway through each stem in succession, till an
area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final overthrow. Then
severing some tall group on the eminence, and allowing it in its descent
to precipitate itself on those below, the whole expanse is in one moment
brought headlong to the ground; the falling timber forcing down those
beneath it by its weight, and dragging those behind to which it is
harnessed by its living attachments. The crash occasioned by this
startling operation is so deafeningly loud, that it is audible for two
or three miles in the clear and still atmosphere of the hills.

One monstrous creeping plant called by the Kandyans the Maha-pus-wael,
or "Great hollow climber,"[1] has pods, some of which I have seen fully
five feet long and six inches broad, with beautiful brown beans, so
large that the natives hollow them out, and carry them as tinder-boxes.

[Footnote 1: _Entada pursaetha_. The same plant, when found in lower
situations, where it wants the soil and moisture of the mountains, is so
altered in appearance that the natives call it the "heen-pus-wael;" and
even botanists have taken it for a distinct species. The beautiful
mountain region of Pusilawa, now familiar as one of the finest coffee
districts in Ceylon, in all probability takes its name from the giant
bean, "Pus-waelawa."]

Another climber of less dimensions[1], but greater luxuriance, haunts
the jungle, and often reaches the tops of the highest trees, whence it
suspends large bunches of its yellow flowers, and eventually produces
clusters of prickly pods containing greyish-coloured seeds, less than an
inch in diameter, which are so strongly coated with silex, that they are
said to strike fire like a flint.

[Footnote 1: Guilandina Bonduc.]

One other curious climber is remarkable for the vigour and vitality of
its vegetation, a faculty in which it equals, if it do not surpass, the
banyan. This is the _Cocculus cordifolius_, the "rasa-kindu" of the
Singhalese, a medicinal plant which produces the _guluncha_ of Bengal.
It is largely cultivated in Ceylon, and when it has acquired the
diameter of half an inch, it is not unusual for the natives to cut from
the main stem a portion of from twenty to thirty feet in length, leaving
the dissevered plant suspended from the branches of the tree which
sustained it. The amputation naturally serves for a time