llows strains upon the bamboo top as a fish bears upon a fishing-rod,
and the spring of the bamboo assists him in lifting up his leg. Without
this assistance, it would be impossible to continue the exertion for
the time required.

While the "bellows-blower" is thus getting up a blaze, another man
attends upon the well, which he continues to feed alternately with
fresh ore and a corresponding amount of charcoal, every now and then
throwing in a handful of fine sand as a flux.

The return for a whole day's puffing and blowing will be about twenty
pounds weight of badly-smelted iron. This is subsequently remelted,
and is eventually worked up into hatchets, hoes, betel-crackers, etc.,
etc. being of a superior quality to the best Swedish iron.

If the native blacksmith were to value his time at only sixpence per
diem from the day on which he first started for the mountains till the
day that he returned from his iron-smelting expedition, he would find
that his iron would have cost him rather a high price per
hundredweight; and if he were to make the same calculation of the value
of time, he would discover that by the time he had completed one axe he
could have purchased ready made, for one-third the money, an English
tool of superior manufacture. This, however, is not their style of
calculation. Time has no value, according to their crude ideas;
therefore, if they want an article, and can produce it without the
actual outlay of cash, no matter how much time is expended, they will
prefer that method of obtaining it.

Unfortunately, the expense of transit is so heavy from Newera Ellia to
Colombo, that this valuable metal, like the fine timber of the forests,
must remain useless.

CHAPTER IV.

Poverty of Soil--Ceylon Sugar--Fatality of Climate--Supposed Fertility
of Soil--Native Cultivation--Neglect of Rice Cultivation--Abandoned
Reservoirs--Former Prosperity--Ruins of Cities--Pollanarua--The Great
Dagoba--Architectural Relics--The Rock Temple--Destruction of
Population--Neglected Capabilities--Suggestions for Increasing
Population--Progress of Pestilence--Deserted Villages--Difficulties in
the Cultivation of Rice--Division of Labor--Native Agriculture.

From the foregoing description, the reader will have inferred that
Newera Ellia is a delightful place of residence, with a mean
temperature of 60 Fahrenheit, abounding with beautiful views of
mountain and plain and of boundless panoramas in the vicinity. He will