While the "bellows-blower" is thus getting up a blaze, another
man attends upon the well, which he continues to feed alternately
with fresh ore and a corresponding amount of charcoal, every now
and then throwing in a handful of fine sand as a flux.
The return for a whole day's puffing and blowing will be about
twenty pounds weight of badly-smelted iron. This is subsequently
remelted, and is eventually worked up into hatchets, hoes,
betel-crackers, etc., etc. being of a superior quality to the
best Swedish iron.
If the native blacksmith were to value his time at only sixpence
per diem from the day on which he first started for the mountains
till the day that he returned from his iron-smelting expedition,
he would find that his iron would have cost him rather a high
price per hundredweight; and if he were to make the same
calculation of the value of time, he would discover that by the
time he had completed one axe he could have purchased ready made,
for one-third the money, an English tool of superior manufacture.
This, however, is not their style of calculation. Time has no
value, according to their crude ideas; therefore, if they want an
article, and can produce it without the actual outlay of cash, no
matter how much time is expended, they will prefer that method of
obtaining it.
Unfortunately, the expense of transit is so heavy from Newera
Ellia to Colombo, that this valuable metal, like the fine timber
of the forests, must remain useless.
CHAPTER IV. Poverty of Soil - Ceylon Sugar - Fatality of Climate
- Supposed Fertility of Soil - Native Cultivation - Neglect of
Rice Cultivation - Abandoned Reservoirs - Former Prosperity -
Ruins of Cities - Pollanarua - The Great Dagoba - Architectural
Relics - The Rock Temple - Destruction of Population - Neglected
Capabilities - Suggestions for Increasing Population - Progress
of Pestilence - Deserted Villages - Difficulties in the
Cultivation of Rice - Division of Labor - Native Agriculture.
>From the foregoing description, the reader will have inferred
that Newera Ellia is a delightful place of residence, with a mean
temperature of 60 Fahrenheit, abounding with beautiful views of
mountain and plain and of boundless panoramas in the vicinity.
He will also have discovered that, in addition to the healthiness
of its climate, its natural resources are confined to its timber
and mineral productions, as the soil is decidedly poor.
The appearance of the latter has deceived every one, especially
the black soil of the patina, which my bailiff, on his first
arrival declared to be excellent. Lord Torrington, who is well
known as an agriculturist, was equally deceived. He was very
confident in the opinion that "it only required draining to
enable it to produce anything." The real fact is, that it is
far inferior to the forest-land, and will not pay for the
working.
