rts from India and elsewhere.

After our train had ascended, almost imperceptibly, to a considerable
height, we came to the Valley of Death, so called because of the
enormous mortality among the workmen employed upon this portion of the
railway. Thence we passed through scenes of wondrous beauty to
Rambukkana, where the train really begins to climb, and has to be
drawn and pushed by two engines--one in front and one behind. It would
be wearisome even to name the various types of tropical vegetation
which we passed; but we thought ourselves fortunate in seeing a
talipot palm in full bloom, with its magnificent spike of yellowish
flowers rising some twenty feet above a noble crown of dark green
fan-shaped leaves. This sight is uncommon, for the trees never bloom
till they are seventy or eighty years old, and then die directly.

[Illustration: Talipot Palm]

Just before arriving at Peradeniya, the new line branches off to
Nanu-oya, 128 miles from Colombo, and 5,300 feet above the sea-level.
Nuwarra-Ellia is reached in about four hours from this, the line
passing through some of the richest and best of the tea- and
quinine-growing estates--formerly covered with coffee plantations. The
horrid coffee-leaf fungus, _Hemileia vastatrix_--the local equivalent
of the phylloxera, or of the Colorado beetle--has ruined half the
planters in Ceylon, although there seems to be a fair prospect of a
good crop this year, not only of coffee but of everything else.

There are over six hundred thousand acres of ground under rice
cultivation in Ceylon, as compared with 130,000 acres of coffee,
175,000 acres of tea, 650,000 acres of palms, and 35,000 acres of
cinchona. Cinnamon and other spices, besides tobacco, cacao, and other
trees and plants, are also more or less extensively grown.
Sugar-cultivation has proved a failure, probably owing to the too
great dampness of the climate.

The Satinwood Bridge at Peradeniya, across the Mahaweliganga, seemed
quite a familiar friend; though the old Englishman who for so many
years washed the sand of the river in search of gems is dead and gone.

In the afternoon I went to keep my appointment with Dr. Trimen, the
present curator of the gardens, and successor to our friend Dr.
Thwaites. The group of india-rubber trees outside the gate, and the
palms just within the enclosure, were old acquaintances, and looked as
graceful as ever. Close by stood a magnificent _Amherstia nobilis_ in
full bloom, its