Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 251, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1912 — HIGHLANDS OF CEYLON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

HIGHLANDS OF CEYLON

IX order to get an idea of the scenery of Ceylon the traveler must go to Kandy or, still higher up the mountains, to Nurwara Elly a. At Colombo he can take his place in a comfortable first-class carriage with a dining car attached and from his window he will see the land where every prospect pleases and only man, as the hymn writer says, is vile. But as you watch the crowd of natives on the platform of Colombo station, the men and women in their bright attire, picturesque and happy, are, indeed, as pleasing to the eye as the fairy-like lanji that they anhabit. No railway station in America ever presents a scene more brilliant in coloring or more animated. The natives, according to their custom, have been waiting for hourg for the train; at the moment of 'departure they crowd into the third-class carriages, hurrying as if they suspected an intention to leave them behind, feverishly excited, calling to one another at the top of their voices. The train plunges at once into beautiful scenery—into a world of amazing greenery. A rice field among other verdure is an emerald among all green stones. And for. thirty or forty miles it is through rice fields surrounded by cocoanut palms that the train passes.

As Colombo is. left behind, however, the traveler first looks out on gardens of cinnamon and fields of grass. Then the broad Kelani river comes in sight. From the forest of palms, grassy slopes come down, to the edge of the water: Floating down the stream are native barges —two canoes joined together by a sort of raft and covered over. Kingfishers flash over the river and hover among the scented white blossoms of the mangoes. On the green pools float pink and white lilies; a red rises from among them qnd spreads its broad wings against the blue sky. Buffaloes stand, up to their necks, in tfae mud of the swamps. Every minute the scenery becomes more beautiful. There are high ridges covered with palm trees and between the ridges valleys of rice fields. You see sowing and reaping going on at the same time. Up to their ankles in water the natives, bare-legged, walk behind the patient buffaloes, yoked to their primitive plows. Here a group of men are mending the little banks of the terraced fields; there women with sickles are cutting the ripened crop; in a little stream some boys are bathing, holding to the branches of the mangrove trees.

Scenes Almost Unreal. The reflection of the palm trees In the w-ater, the shadow of the clouds chasing the sunlight across the submerged fields and the bright costumes of the natives combine to form a picture so lovely that it seems almost unreal to western eyes. The train passes a tea garden shaded with rubber trees. Women with bright shawls over their heads and huge baskets on their backs, with shoulders and arms bare, are working among the gleaming shrubs that come up to their waists. The light trunks of the rubber trees make an artistic background to the industrious scene. ~ The train crosses the main street of a native village; on both sides is a jungle of cocoanut palms. In little clearings among the trees are the huts of the Cinghalese—small white houses, with brown tiled roofs .and broad verandas. It has rained during the night; now the sun is shining on glowing red soil and glistening leaves and grass; birds are singing; the golden oriole and the brilliant parroquet dart through the palms, beautiful butterflies hang over the trees, aflame with crimson blossom. The train enters a thick forest, all the more tropical in appearance because of the vast creepers that coil round the tree trunks and wave in the breeze in snakelike festoons. On the banks of a stream in the forest a crocodile basks in the sun; a lizard four .feet long creeps into the undergrowth. - The railway reaches rocky foothills; the undergrowth is very dense. Trees cover the hillsides which rise to green pyramids against the sky. Here and ’.here are cultivated clearings—banana and rubber and tea plantations—high above the le)U of the train. There

are rice fields terraced on the slopes like the vineyards of Italy. The train stops at a station. Near by are bullock carts loaded with bunches of bananas.*, natives on the platforms offer bananas for sale and oranges which are ripe though bright green. Soon mountain peaks appear. You see them through a waving mass of palms, cocoanuts, arecanuts and talipots in flower. As we ascend the hills we look down on a valley filled with rice fields. Hundreds of terraces filled with water gleam like irregular silver steps leading up the mountainsides. A vast green world spreads before us, shut in by lofty ranges. Where the red soil appears on the slopes are tea gardens, cocoa and coffee plantations. Gray rocks jut out amidst the waving jungle grass. The scene grows wilder. A crenellated summit standing out against a vast white cloud looks like a ruined castle. Some half-naked men grouped in front of a hut thatched with palm leaves, their long hair hanging over their shoulders, have a wild and almost terrifying appearance. Alagala peak, 3,300 feet high, comes into view; it was from this precipitous summit that the last king of Kandy hurled the prisoners taken in battle. Through the broad leaves of the wild banana you see the mountain carriage road passing through a sort of cave or hole cut in a spur of the mountainside. A native tradition was that the Kandyan country would be conquered by invaders who came through a rock, Tunnel Through Rock. and when the road was built for military purposes this rock was purposely tunneled., that the natives might be awed by the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Along the banks of rock-strewn mountain rivers, along hillsides covered with jungle, through cacao and rubber plantations the train comes to Kandy, the popular hill resort of the merchants in Colombo and of the lowcountry planters. Here we are 1,600 feet above the -sea; Nuwara Eliya is nearly 5,000 feet higher still up the mountains. As the train ascends we And ourselves passing through a region devoted to tea gardens. It is the very center of the industry. We have left behind us the tropical scenery. From the carriage window we no'longer see palms or bamboos or the brilliant green of the rice fields. The views grow more and more enchanting. There Is a glimpse of the distant Indian ocean, a vision of Adam's peak, the famous mountain of pilgrimage. A waterfall dashes down the mountainside up which we crawl in amazing curves. Through a forest • the train comes to Nuwara Eliya, the chief pleasure resort of Ceylon. It is in the midst of a vast plateau of jungle grass. These highland plains, which are often covered with rhododendron trees and with wild flowers, are called in Ceylon patanas. They form a striking feature of the highland scenery and the traveler arriving at Nuwara Eliya and looking across the rolling grass country to the encircling hills, covered with drifting mist, might well suppose himself to be standing on a Scottish moor. From here It is easy to climb to the summit of Peturutalagala and so to reach the highest point in Ceylon. It is 8.200 feet above the sea and overlooks the entire central portion of the island —a blue-green world of- forestcovered mountain, of hills embedded in jungle of lake-like upland plains of waving grass. The mountain from which the traveler looks down upon this scene is covered with diminutive trees, gnarled and twisted into fantastic shapes. Upon the bent and grotesque boughs and trunks grow moss and fern and orchids as if to remind the spectator that, though a cool wind strikes upon bls cheeks, he is standing on a summit in the tropics, within a few hours, journey of the steamy heat of Colombo, whence he Out of Business, “He was a receptive candidate, but where is his candidacy now?” “In the hands of a receiver, I guess.”

OLDEST ROCK TEMPLE IN CEYLON