The Pearl of India

These wild people of the district of Bintenne are divided into two communities, – the Rock or Jungle Veddahs, and the Village Veddahs, the latter living nearest to the settlements on the east coast, dwelling in cabins built in the rudest manner, and cultivating some simple grains and vegetables, while the former remain in the depth of the forest, roaming hither and thither, and avoiding all contact with civilization. They are said to have preserved this isolation and manner of living from the earliest period of the island's history. They supplement their other food with various edible roots, wild fruits, and honey, adding lizards, roasted monkeys, and venison. They are not Buddhists, and have no hesitation as to the taking of animal life, or in eating the meat of bird or beast. It is said that they eat freely of carrion, or decayed animal substances, with perfect impunity, – like the Arctic races, who live largely upon putrid whale blubber in the summer season; in winter, it freezes so solid as to keep it from putrefaction. The wild elephant would seem to be too powerful an animal for these poorly armed savages to attack, but it is not so, – they do hunt him, and successfully. Their mode is to lie in hiding near what is known as an elephant path until one makes his appearance, and as he passes, at a favorable moment, when he lifts his foot nearest to the hunter, a short steel-headed arrow is shot into the soft sole. When the animal stamps his foot with pain, he only drives the shaft still deeper into his limb. The poor beast soon lies down, in his agony, and in this climate a wound festers with great rapidity. The huge creature cannot bear his wounded foot to the ground, and sinks upon the earth, after great suffering, in a helpless condition. The Veddah huntsman then approaches, and with a well-aimed spear, thrust where the spinal marrow and the brain unite, the creature's misery is ended, and he quickly breathes his last.

It is said by those who are well informed about these wild people, that their best huntsmen are less cruel and equally successful. The plan they adopt is to lie in wait near a spot frequented by the elephants, probably some watercourse where they come to drink. At a favorable moment, the huntsman, being only a few yards off, sends a steel-headed shaft into the brain of the huge beast by aiming just upward behind the ear, whereupon the elephant falls lifeless upon the ground.

At certain seasons, these people bring honey and dried venison to the frontier, with an occasional elephant's tusk, and exchange them for cloth, hatchets, arrowheads, and a few simple articles which they have learned to use. They have no circulating medium like money; they could make no use of such. They seem to have no idea of God or Heaven, and erect neither temples nor idols, though a sort of propitiatory devil worship is said to prevail among them, the real purport of which is quite inexplicable. Like other tribes of whom we have spoken, they appear to have an idea that some invisible evil power is antagonistic to them and their well-being, and that their safety lies in offering homage in some form to that power. Of any supreme influence for good, they have no conception. They have heard of the white man's God, but believe their Devil is far more powerful. Like the humbler class of Italians, they have a mortal dread of something equivalent to the "evil eye." Such was an explanation given to us by an intelligent Buddhist at Kandy, who had once been a priest.

The worship of the serpent as an emblem of divinity has been attributed to the earliest inhabitants of this island, but the Veddahs have no such faith. One of the most ancient among the multiplicity of names which Ceylon has borne is Nágadipa, or "snake island," in reference, it is thought by some, to this special worship of the aborigines. To the author, however, it seems much more reasonable that the name may have arisen from the great number of these reptiles which were, and which still are, found upon its soil. There are still some tribes in Ceylon who reverence the serpent as an emblem, and who actually devote temples to them, as the Hindus have done to bulls and monkeys for ages.

The Veddahs are considered to be utter barbarians, but we very much doubt if many of their customs are any more barbaric than some which prevail among the Singhalese. Take, for instance, the revolting practice of polyandry, which is still countenanced in Ceylon. This custom, so strange and unnatural, has existed here for thousands of years, and longer still in India proper, as well as in Thibet and Cashmere. History tells us that this odious custom was common in Britain at the period of Cæsar's invasion. It is said to be dying out in this island since the advent of the English. Let us at least hope so, though the author was informed upon the spot that it was not unknown among the natives of the Kandian district at the present time. Conventionality has all the force of enacted law. Vice and virtue, it would seem, are relative terms, both being amenable to latitude and longitude. There is a custom among the Alaska Indians, deemed by them to be simply a rite of hospitality, which would consign a person to state prison if perpetrated in New England. Is there not also a legalized system of social debasement in Japan, so utterly vile in our estimation as to be absolutely unmentionable in detail?

We have not yet in reality departed from Colombo, concerning which a few more words should be added before taking the reader inland to "imperial" Kandy in the central province among the hills.

Colombo is an especially well-regulated and well-governed town. No reasonable fault can be found with its police arrangements, for notwithstanding the singular variety of nationalities gathered together within its limits, one witnesses no lawlessness; there are no visible improprieties of conduct, but quiet reigns supreme, both in the Singhalese and in the English quarter of the capital. The most lawless element here is the crows, and one must admit that these audacious creatures are irrepressible.

The native women of the middle class whom one sees in the city are singular objects as regards costume, and appear as if engaged in a constant masquerade, being decorated in the most striking manner. They wear silver and brass rings thrust through the tops and bottoms of their ears, through their nostrils and lips, their toes sometimes being also covered with small gold coins attached to rings. Their ankles, fingers, and wrists are decked with bangles and rings, while their diaphanous dress is of rainbow colors. The author saw women, who were acting as nurses to the children of European residents, wearing all these gewgaws as described, the gross weight of which must have been considerable. Some of these women would be good-looking, not to say handsome, were they less disfigured by the cheap jewelry which they pile upon themselves, without regard to good taste or reason. It is an ingrained barbaric fondness for trinkets, which it would seem that they never quite outgrow, as women old and decrepit indulge it to the utmost limit of their means, thus thoughtlessly adding by contrast to their worn and wasted appearance. As to their being employed as nurses in the English officers' families, there is a certain degree of fitness in that, for they are very faithful in this relation; they are naturally loyal to their trust, and as a rule have excellent dispositions, so that the children become very fond of them.

The men wear their jet-black hair long, done up with a circular shell comb in front, which keeps at back from the forehead and temples, and often have a high shell comb at the back of the head to keep the coil together, all of which gives them a most feminine appearance. The women do not wear combs at all, but braid their profuse ink-black locks, and twist them into a snood behind the head, a certain quantity being formed into puffs like bow-knots, and the whole kept together with long metallic pins, having ornamental heads of brass or silver. Like the Japanese women, their hair is so arranged as to be very showy, and they take great pride in its appearance.

This passion for covering their persons with gewgaws is as old with these people as the ancient city of Anuradhapura, where the same custom prevailed among the Singhalese two thousand years ago. The abundance and beauty of the precious stones found in the soil of the island naturally led to their being mounted and worn by the wealthiest people. This fashion was imitated, as usual, by the humbler classes to the very limit of their means. If the latter could not afford the genuine article, they were obliged, as they are to-day, to be satisfied with cheap imitations.

The rank and file of the common people, clad in various colors, form a brilliant panorama in the streets of Colombo on a gala day, mingled with whom are itinerant exhibitors of legerdemain, snake charmers, hustling dealers in gewgaws, peddlers of bonbons, native women bearing baskets of fruit on their heads, and naked Tamil laborers, – living bronzes, – on their way to the wharves. All phases of life are represented. An occasional blind and decrepit native is seen, guided by a small lad, who solicits pennies with which to purchase a little rice and curry, as the boy says in broken English. The most persistent beggars of all whom one meets in the thoroughfares are the Buddhist priests, who extend a dirty brass dish for alms, while mumbling some unintelligible gibberish. An occasional stranger and some humble natives respond to his appeals by contributing a few pennies, but the aggregate of his collection must be very small.

There dashes by us, while we watch the scene, a gay party of English residents in a four-horse drag, bound to Mount Lavonia. This is a pleasant resort five or six miles from Colombo, on the coast line, where there is a very good public house, built originally for a private residence by a former governor of the island. It stands upon a promontory some fifty feet in height, which juts out into the sea, washed on either side by the waves of the Indian Ocean. This hotel is a conspicuous white building, and forms a familiar landmark for inward-bound vessels. It is much cooler at Lavonia than at Colombo, as the location is more open to the sea breezes, besides being upon an elevation.

Let us also invite the reader to embark upon an excursion; but in place of hugging the sea coast by means of a coach and four, we will turn our faces inland by railway toward the olden capital of Kandy, in the heart of the island.

CHAPTER XI

The Ancient Capital of Kandy. – An Artificial Lake. – The Great River of Ceylon. – Site of the Capital of the Central Province. – On the Way from Colombo to Kandy. – The Tiny Musk-Deer. – The Wild Boar. – Native Cabins. – From the Railway Car Windows. – The Lotus. – Destructive White Ants and their Enemies. – Wild Animals. – The Mother of Twins. – A Little Waif. – A Zigzag Railway. – An Expensive Road to build. – "Sensation Rock" with an Evil History. – Grand Alpine Scenery.

Kandy, the Maha-neura, or "great city," of the Singhalese, one of the ancient capitals of Ceylon, is beautifully situated in the bosom of the verdant hills in the central province of the island, just about half way between the east and west coasts, a little more than seventy miles north of Colombo. Here the town nestles on a bend of the Maha-velle-Ganga ("great sandy river"), which nearly surrounds the old city at a distance of three miles from its centre. It became the capital of the island in 1592. As it was repeatedly captured and burned by the Portuguese, Dutch, and English, it presents no architectural monuments with any pretension to antiquity. Here we are about seventeen hundred feet above sea level, beside a spacious, though artificial lake, which represents a small portion of the grand system of irrigation for which Ceylon was so famous through a score of centuries. There is no natural lake worthy of the name in the country, though there are numerous ponds, large and small, here and there, especially in the southern part of the island. In the centre of this large sheet of water, with its charming aspect of repose and freshness, is a tiny island, where the last king of Kandy, who was a notorious tyrant, established his harem with true oriental lavishness. It is now improved as a safe place for the storage of gunpowder and other explosive war materials. At least, it was formerly thus appropriated, though perhaps it is not so now. The infamous sovereign referred to, Sri Wikrema Raja Singha, at whose death ended a long and famous line of kings, was outrageous beyond all precedent. He was accustomed to behead any one of his counselors who dared to disagree with him, also wreaking his vengeance upon the individual's innocent family, males and females, by treating them in a similar manner.

The immense tank at Kandy is of modern construction, having been finished early in the present century by the king whose name we have just given. The heavy embankment which holds the lake in its bed has been made into a broad and most charming esplanade, decked with handsome shade trees, thus surrounding the basin with an inviting driveway and promenade, enlivened by choice flowering shrubs, whose names only an accomplished botanist could remember. Among them the ever-fragrant cape jessamine is conspicuous, together with beds of violets and mignonette. Palms prevail everywhere on the island, with their bare trunks reaching sixty or seventy feet upward, at which point they throw out their deep green, gracefully drooping foliage in thick clusters. The lake is about three miles in circumference, encircled by a low stone wall, and is, judged even by modern rules, a remarkably skillful piece of engineering.

The Maha-velle-Ganga rises in the base of the neighboring mountains, and, flowing past Kandy, turns to the north, finally discharging itself by several mouths into the ocean far away on the east coast, near the port of Trincomalee. It drains in its course upwards of four thousand square miles of territory, being a hundred and thirty miles long, and is navigable by small boats nearly to Kandy. The hills which encompass the town make of it a verdant amphitheatre, and are themselves dotted with flourishing tea-plantations, mostly owned by English agriculturists, the growing of tea, as already explained, having largely superseded, or perhaps we should say supplemented, that of coffee throughout the island. In the higher regions, near the foot-hills, where the big river rises, there used to be a great coffee district, healthy and populous; but alas! malaria and jungle fever lie crouching upon its lower banks like a beast of prey, ready to pounce upon the passing and incautious traveler, while hungry, wide-jawed crocodiles lie half-concealed in the low mangroves, ready to snap up any dog or young native child which thoughtlessly approaches their domain. The Ceylon crocodile is a large animal, quite common on the inland rivers and deserted, half ruined tanks, and frequently measures over twenty feet from the snout to the tip of the tail. In the malarial districts, all sorts of insects, reptiles, and wild animals thrive and multiply abundantly, but to man, and even to most domestic animals, such regions are poisonous.

The reason why the river-courses in Ceylon are so unsalubrious, so fever-inducing, is easily explained. These waterways overflow their banks in the rainy season, depositing an accumulation of vegetable matter which remains to decompose when the river subsides, thus infecting the surrounding country. The banks of swiftly flowing streams are considered to be healthful localities, but they do not prove so in this tropical island. The Maha-velle-Ganga, which is the Mississippi of Ceylon, is no exception to this rule.

In coming to Kandy from Colombo, the railway for the first forty miles threads its way through a thinly populated region, over a level country which is often so low as to be of a marshy nature, though the soil is marked by overwhelming fertility. About fifteen miles from the capital is Henaratgoda, where the government Tropical Gardens are situated. Here the process of acclimatization for exotics is tried with plants which might not thrive at the altitude of the Botanical Gardens of Peradenia, near Kandy. The railway stations, it will be observed, are all beautifully ornamented with tropical flowers adapted to the situation. This is getting to be a universal custom all over the world. Even in Russia, on the line between St. Petersburg and Moscow, every depot is thus beautified. The railways are a government monopoly in this island, furnishing a handsome revenue. There are no presidents to swallow up salaries of fifty thousand dollars each, nor other ornamental officials receiving enormous sums of money for imaginary services. At each station in Ceylon, pretty children of both sexes offer the traveler tempting native fruits. They are very interesting, these children, in spite of their unkempt hair and entire nudity. Their big black eyes are full of pleading earnestness and bright expression, while their dark brown skin shines like polished mahogany under the hot rays of an equatorial sun. The land seen on the route is interspersed by rice plantations, groves of palms, bananas, and plantains, while the jungle at intervals is seen to be impassable, the trees are so bound together with stout, creeping vines and close undergrowth. Hump-backed cows and black swine, with an occasional domesticated buffalo, are all the animals one sees, though there are a plenty of wild ones not far away in less populous districts, including bears, deer, leopards, and elephants. The buffalo is almost an amphibious animal, and may be seen for many hours daily nearly immersed in the ponds, lakes, or rivers, only its head, horns, and nose visible above the water. Thus he will lie or stand for any length of time, chewing the cud like other creatures of his kind, until hunger compels him to seek food on the dry land. Happy for him if he be not attacked, while thus exposed, by the voracious pond leeches, more fatal than the flies which he strives to avoid by thus immersing his body. The elephants are still numerous, notwithstanding so many have been exported to the continent hard by. A carefully prepared estimate published at Colombo last year (close of 1893) places the probable number of wild elephants in Ceylon at five thousand. It is also believed that the small numbers of these animals which are now shot by Europeans annually will not decrease this aggregate, because of the natural breeding which is all the time going on. There are also found here in abundance the wild boar, jackal, ant-eater, and a great variety of monkeys (the latter afraid only of Europeans), and the cheetah. This last named is an animal of the leopard family, nearly three feet in height, and six feet long from nose to tail-tip, but exceedingly active and over-fond of monkey-flesh. It is of a dun color, with round black spots distributed uniformly over the body.

The tiny musk-deer, so called, though it has no musk-bag or scent about it of that pungent nature, is indigenous to Ceylon. There is a stuffed specimen in the Colombo museum, but the author did not happen to see one alive. It is only about twelve or fourteen inches long and ten high when at maturity, but it is formed exactly like a full-grown North American deer or antelope, having a gray hide dappled with white spots, like a young fawn. Its exquisite delicacy of limbs is very beautiful. Several attempts have been made to transport a pair from this island to the Zoölogical Gardens of London, but the little creatures have never survived the voyage. They prove to be as delicate in constitution as in physical formation.

We have incidentally mentioned the wild boar, to hunt which is a sport that has brought nearly as many Englishmen to Ceylon as has that generally more attractive and much larger game, the wild elephant. Strange to say, the boar, weighing on an average not much over two hundred pounds, has proved quite as dangerous and even more formidable in conflict than the huge monarch of these forests. The quick-witted, cool, and experienced huntsman can avoid the giant elephant when he charges, – he is necessarily sluggish on account of his size; but the wild boar is swift, fierce, and armed with tusks sharp as a dagger's point, which he uses with the adroitness and rapidity of a skilled swordsman. Sir Samuel Baker says that he has killed these animals in Ceylon weighing over four hundred pounds each, and has seen them here even much larger. The boar is hunted with trained dogs, and is scarcely ever driven to bay without seriously wounding and often killing one or more of the pack. The hunter does not shoot at the boar when at close quarters, lest he should kill the dogs hanging to the animal; but the true form is for him to close in upon the fight and bury his long knife in the creature's vital parts. Practiced sportsmen aim to bury their weapon just back of the ears, at the junction of the brain and spinal marrow; death to the boar is then instantaneous. Sir Samuel Baker, who was an inveterate sportsman, had many narrow escapes in wild-boar hunting in Ceylon, and was more than once seriously wounded.

The natives inland, as observed on the line of the railway, live in the simplest and rudest of huts, mostly formed of bamboo frames filled in with clay baked in the sun. The thatched roofs consist, as usual in this country, of large palm leaves braided together, one layer lapping over another, thus effectually excluding even equatorial rains. The eaves come within three or four feet of the ground. There are no chimneys nor windows in these primitive abodes, but the doors, which are always open, admit light and air. The natives only sleep in them; during their waking hours, they are always under the blue sky. Each native builds his own cabin, which rarely consists of more than one apartment. In its erection no nails are used; the several parts are tied together with rattans and stout vines, which become like rope when they are once dry. The climate is so uniformly warm that many do not even plaster their walls with clay, using palm leaves and boughs of trees to form a sufficient covering. A sheltered situation is chosen, so as to be protected from the weather when the monsoons blow, for these natives have a fixed aversion to the wind and rain. There is a certain harmony between the primitive simplicity of these people and that of surrounding nature. To the casual observer, as he passes over this route between Colombo and Kandy, there is an unpleasant suggestion in the surroundings of possible jungle fever. The thick, low-lying, tangled woods and stagnant pools one would think must be the very home of chills and fever. They would be so considered in continental India, or in the south and west of our own country; yet the people hereabouts do not seem at present to suffer from any special form of ill health. The men are thin in flesh, but muscular and cheerful in aspect. They really seem to enjoy life after their dull, animal-like fashion, though their principal occupation is that of working in the wet rice-fields, an employment which no European can safely pursue. The latter, in fact, never become sufficiently acclimated to be able to live in low and swampy districts in Ceylon without contracting malaria, the effects of which last through a lifetime.

When this railway was being built, the coolies employed in the work died by hundreds from the unwholesome character of the neighborhood, until the rule was adopted of returning the laborers after the day's work to Colombo to sleep, bringing them back again after sunrise. It is the damp night air which prevails in the lowlands, and its attendant miasma, which proves so fatal. One after another of the European overseers and engineers sickened, and were compelled to return home to England before a restoration to health was effected; while some, apparently the most hardy, and who took the best of care of themselves, succumbed altogether, and were buried in the island far from their native land. Better drainage and cleared jungles have greatly improved the sanitary conditions. The dense forest has been opened to the influence of purifying breezes and the effect of the genial sunshine, so that there is much less chance for the pestilence to find a breeding-place.

Banana groves, with the trees bending under the weight of the rich, finger-shaped fruit; tall cocoanut-trees, the tops heavy with the nutritious food they bear; stout tamarinds and juicy mangoes; ant-hills, looking like young volcanoes, half as high as native huts; rippling cascades; sharp declivities; glistening pools; white cranes; tall pink flamingoes, standing like sentinels on the muddy banks; an occasional monkey leaping among the trees; golden orioles, gaudy-feathered parrots, and other birds of dazzling hues, are observed with never-flagging interest from the windows of the slowly moving cars, while on this inland route to Kandy. The marabou, which is so much prized for its delicate feathers, is occasionally seen stalking watchfully by the shaded pools, seizing now and then upon small reptiles with its formidable bill and devouring them at a single gulp. It seems strange that these birds can swallow with impunity snakes and other vicious reptiles while they are yet alive. One would think that creatures whose bite is often fatal to human beings would under such circumstances cause a fearful state of commotion in a bird's crop. If ostriches, however, can swallow and digest large nails, jackknives, and corkscrews, perhaps the gastric juices of these smaller birds may have special properties to aid them in effectually disposing of poisonous reptiles.