stance of those with
hard skins, such as the pomegranate, or with a tough leathery coating,
like the mango, the evaporation might be imagined to be less than in
those of a soft and spongy texture. But all share alike in the general
coolness of the plant, so long as circulation supplies fluid for
evaporation; and the moment this resource is cut off by the separation
of the fruit from the tree, the supply of moisture failing, the process
of refrigeration is arrested, and the charm of agreeable freshness gone.

It only remains to notice the aquatic plants, which are found in greater
profusion in the northern and eastern provinces than in any other
districts of the island, owing to the innumerable tanks and neglected
watercourses which cover the whole surface of this once productive
province, but which now only harbour the alligator, or satisfy the
thirst of the deer and the elephant.

[Footnote 1: See on this subject LINDLEY'S _Introduction to Botany_,
vol. ii. book ii. ch. viii. p. 215.

CARPENTER, _Animal Physiology_, ch. ix. s. 407. CARPENTER'S _Vegetable
Physiology_, ch. xi. s. 407, Lond. 1848.]

The chief ornaments of these neglected sheets of water are the large red
and white Lotus[1], whose flowers may be seen from a great distance
reposing on their broad green leaves. In China and some parts of India
the black seeds of these plants, which are not unlike little acorns in
shape, are served at table in place of almonds, which they are said to
resemble, but with a superior delicacy of flavour. At some of the tanks
where the lotus grows in profusion in Ceylon, I tasted the seeds
enclosed in the torus of the flowers, and found them white and
delicately-flavoured, not unlike the small kernel of the pine cone of
the Apennines. This red lotus of the island appears to be the one that
Herodotus describes as abounding in the Nile in his time, but which is
now extinct; with a flower resembling a rose, and a fruit in shape like
a wasp's nest, and containing seeds of the size of an olive stone, and
of an agreeable flavour.[2] But it has clearly no identity with those
which he describes as the food of the Lotophagi of Africa, of the size
of the mastic[3], sweet as a date, and capable of being made into wine.

[Footnote 1: Nelumbium speciosum.]

[Footnote 2: Herodotus, b. ii. s. 92.]

[Footnote 3: The words are "[Greek: Esti megathos hoson te tes schinou]"
(Herod. b. iv. s. 177); and as [Greek: schinos] means also a _squill_