le. Anything, however simple, is better than an empty stomach,
and when the latter is positively empty it is wonderful how the
appetite welcomes the most miserable fare.

At Newera Ellia the jungles would always produce a supply for a soupe
maigre. There is an esculent nillho which grows in the forest in the
bottoms of the swampy ravines. This is a most succulent plant, which
grows to the height or length of about seven feet, as its great weight
keeps it close to the ground. It is so brittle that it snaps like a
cucumber when struck by a stick, and it bears a delicate, dark-blue
blossom. When stewed, it is as tender as the vegetable marrow, but its
flavor approaches more closely to that of the cucumber. Wild ginger
also abounds in the forests. This is a coarse variety of the "amomum
zintgiber." The leaves, which spring from the ground, attain a height
of seven or eight feet; a large, crimson, fleshy blossom also springs
from the ground in the centre of the surrounding leaf-stems. The root
is coarse, large, but wanting in fine flavor, although the young tubers
are exceedingly tender and delicate. This is the favorite food of
elephants on the Ceylon mountains; but it is a curious fact that they
invariably reject the leaves, which any one would suppose would be
their choicest morsel, as they are both succulent and plentiful. The
elephants simply use them as a handle for tearing up the roots, which
they bite off and devour, throwing the leaves on one side.

The wild parsnip is also indigenous to the plains on the mountains. As
usual with most wild plants of this class, it has little or no root,
but runs to leaf. The seeds are very highly flavored, and are gathered
by the natives for their curries.

There is, likewise, a beautiful orchidaceous plant, which is very
common throughout the patinas on the mountains, and which produces the
very finest quality of arrowroot. So much is this valued in the Nepaul
country in India, that I have been assured by a person well acquainted
with that locality, that this quality of arrowroot is usually sold for
its weight in rupees. In vain have I explained this to the Cingalese;
they will not attempt its preparation because their fathers did not eat
it; and yet these same men will walk forty miles to cut a bundle of
sticks of the galla gaha tree for driving buffaloes!--their fathers did
this, and therefore they do it. Thus this beautiful plant is only
appreciated by those whose