Everything Appears To Have Deserted The Country, And To Have
Yielded It As The Sole Territory Of Nature On A Stupendous Scale.
The creepers lie serpent-like along the ground to the thickness
of a man's waist, and, rearing their twisted
Forms on high, they
climb the loftiest trees, hanging in festoons from stern to stem
like the cables of a line-of-battle-ship, and extending from tree
to tree for many hundred yards; now felling to the earth and
striking a fresh root; then, with increased energy, remounting
the largest trunks, and forming a labyrinth of twisted ropes
along the ceiling of the forest. From these creepers hang the
sabre-beans. Everything seems on a supernatural scale - the
bean-pod four feet or more in length, by three inches in breadth;
the beans two inches in diameter.
Here may be seen the most valuable woods of Ceylon. The ebony
grows in great perfection and large quantity. This tree is at
once distinguished from the surrounding stems by its smaller
diameter and its sooty trunk. The bark is crisp, jet black, and
has the appearance of being charred. Beneath the bark the wood
is perfectly white until the heart is reached, which is the fine
black ebony of commerce. Here also, equally immovable, the
calamander is growing, neglected and unknown. This is the most
esteemed of all Ceylon woods, and it is so rare that it realizes
a fancy price. It is something similar to the finest walnut, the
color being a rich hazel brown, mottled and striped with
irregular black marks.
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