Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon

centric Groom-Insubordination-Commencement of Cultivation-Sagacity of the Elephant-Disappointments-"

cidents that I could scarcely believe that it lay within my power to renew them. Ruminating over all that bad happened within the past year, I conjured up localities to my memory which seemed too attractive to have existed in reality. I wandered along London streets, comparing the noise and bustle with the deep solitudes of Ceylon, and I felt like the sickly plants in a London parterre

on. I determined to become a settler at Newera Ellia, where I could reside in a pe

Newera Ellia. The infatuation for sport, added to a gypsy-like love of wandering an

ore suggested; and I trusted to be enabled to effect such a change in the rough face of Nature in that locality as to render a residence at Newer

ned to make a regular settlement at Newera Ellia, sanguinely looking fo

ngs per acre. I engaged an excellent bailiff, who, with his wife and daughter, with nine

owing stock: A half-bred bull (Durham and Hereford), a well-bred Durham cow, three rams (a Southdown, Leicester and Cotsw

e good ship "Earl of Hardwick," belonging to Messrs. Green & Co., sailed from London in September, 1848. I had previousl

the ark. However, I wandered over the neighboring plains and jungles of Newera Ellia, and at length I stuck my walking-stick int

scent toward Badulla. This position was two miles and a half from Newera Ellia, and was far more agreea

he plains, obscuring the view of everything, except the pattering rain which descended without ceasing day or night. Every sound was hushed, save that of the elements and the dist

ition, I was obliged to offer an exorbitant rate of wages. In about fortnight, however, the wind and rain showed flags of truce in the shape of white clouds set in a

elling of trees, the noise of saws and hammers and the perpetual chattering

expected to have everything in readiness for the emigrants on their arrival. I rent

h-bred "shorthorn," and she weighed about thirteen hundredweight. She was so fat that a march of one hundred and fifteen miles in a tropical climate was impossible. Accordingly a van was arranged for her, which the maker assured me would carry an elephant. But no sooner had the cow entered it than th

up in a new clarence which I had brought from England.

ile a troop of bullock-bandies carried the lighter goods. I had a tame elephant waiting a

e were all fairly off. In an enterprise of this kind many disappointments were necessarily to be expected, and I had prepared

so heavy that the horses were totally unable to ascend the pass. I therefore left it at the rest-house w

following day I sent down the groom with a pair of horses to bring up the carria

iest of the party; I therefore cautioned him to be very careful in driving up the pass, es

t in my hand by a native, which, being add

nor

reccippice isn't very deep bein not above heighy feet or therabouts-the hosses is got up but is very bad-the carrige lies on its back and we can't stir i

Humbel

PERK

age and a pair of fine Australian horses

view of the carriage down a precipice on the road side. One horse was so injured that it was necessary to destroy him; the other died

ly ill. The next morning another letter informed me that she was dead. This was a sad loss after the trouble of bringing so fine an animal from England;

lay inverted; and although a tolerable specimen of a smash, I determined to pay a certain honor to its remains by not allowing it to lie and rot upon the ground. Accordingly, I

ng at the same time that the mahout should put the animal into a trot. In vain the man remonstrated, and explained that such a pace would injure the elephant on a journey; threat

oon explained. Mr. Perkes had kept up the pace for fifteen miles, to Ramboddé, when, finding that the elephant was not required, he took a little

the steep pass for seven miles, till

nt was now added to his list of victims; and he had the satisfaction of knowing

ick of a horse, and to conceal the disfigurement he wore a black patch, which gave him very much the expression of a bull terrier with a similar mark. Notwithstanding this disadvantage in appearance, he was p

iff, and openly defied his authority. I was obliged to send two of them to jail as an exam

the plough. This was very expensive work, amounting to about thirty pounds per acre. The root of a large tree would frequently occupy three men a couple of days in its extraction, which, at the rate of wages, at one shilling per diem, was very costly. The land thu

ore, while the large native force was engaged in sweeping the forest from the sur

the settlement at Newera Ellia the idea of a lunatic, the "Moon Plain" was an appropriate spot for the experiment. A tolerably level fiel

lephant; a skim, drawn by another elephant, a

us quickly pared of the turf, the patent cultivator

rows, much trouble was saved in subsequently spreading the ashes. This being completed, we had six teams at work, tw

wer of agricultural implements, especially as some of these implement

oots of the rank turf as a knife peels an apple. It was amusing, to see this same elephant doing the work of three separate teams when the seed was in the ground. She first drew a pair of heavy

trunks of trees from the lately felled forest were lying within fifty yards of the spot, and the trunks required for the dam were about fifteen feet long and fourteen to eighteen inches in diameter. These she carried in her mouth, shifting her hold along the log before she ra

ge. These she placed greatest with the care in their exact positions, unassisted by any one.[1] She rolled them gently over with her head, then with one foot, and keeping her trunk on the opposite side of the log, she checked its way whenever its own momentum would have carried it into the s

g stone bridges, when the stones required for the

at Newera Ellia. No sooner were the oats a few inches above ground than they were subjected t

than the Southdown ram got hoven upon it and died. The two remaining rams, not having been accustomed to much high living since their arrival at Newera Ellia, got pugnacious upon the clover, and in a pitched battle the Leicester ram killed the

d not make much impression on me, and the loss of a few crops at the outset

ction of a respectable farmer's wife, whose gentle manners and amiable disposit

g standing, and I was suddenly called to join in the mournful proce

d upon everything. Many acres of forest were cleared, and the crops succeeded each other in rapid succession. I had, however, made the disc

cattle; but, as it happened, the natural pasturage was so bad that no beast could thrive upon it. Thus everything, even grass-land, had

er lime nor magnesia in the soil. An abundance of silica throws a good crop of straw, but the grain is wanting: Indian corn will not form grain from the same cause. On the other hand, peas, beans, turnips, carrots, cabbages, etc., produce crops as heavy as those of England. Potatoes, being the staple art

years with three hundred pounds; and all the industrious people succeed. I am now without one man whom I brought out. The bailiff farms a little land of his own, and his pre

llect seeing her, during a press of work, rendering assistance to her Vulcan in a manner worthy of a Cyclop's spouse. She was wielding an eighteen-pound sledgehammer, sending the

I brought out are doing well; even Henry Perkes, of elephant-joc

of course b