The Sun.
London, England, 1860-02-16 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

Ceylon. By Sir James Emmerson Tennent. 2 vols.
Longman. Third notice.
It is almost impossible to overrate the vast
amount of desirable and delightful reading that these
volumes contain, and, indeed, no can form a oorrect
notion of their merits without perusing them. It
is not surprising, therefore, that this work should
have been the great success of the season, the book
of the day ; and, although it is now some little
time since its first appearance, the recent announce-
ment of a fourth edition proves that it is only
approaching the zenith of its fame, instead of
passing away into the oblivion that often enshrouds
many books at first sight most promising and
prosperous: The account of the " Ruined Cities"
is very interesting ; and, indeed, a peculiar charm
seems always to attach itself to the records of the
faded glories and departed splendours of the mighty
monuments and palatial edifices that once arose,
the proud trophies of man's majesty and supremacy,
but now, crumbling in decay, they bear a sad and
solemn witness to his finite powers and limited
achievements. The antiquity of these cities is one
of the most remarkable things that strikes the
attention ; the chronicles which celebrate their
pristine greatness seem to appertain to an epoch
which, as Macaulay observes, "is lost in the
twilight of fable." The city of Anarajapoora is
the favoured possessor of the sacred 80-tree---the
Victorious, Illustrious, Supreme Lord, the Sacred
80-tree—le planting of which forms the grandest
episode in the sacred annals of Ceylon. The
annexed account is most interesting :
The 80-tree of Anarajapoora is, in all probability, the
oldest historical tree in the world. It was planted 280
years before Christ, and hence it is now 2,147 years old.
Ages varying from one to five thousand years have been
assigned to tho baobabs of Senegal, the eucalyptus of Tas-
mania, the dragon-tree of Orotava, the Wellingtonia of
California, and the chestutt of Mount Etna. But all these
estimates are matters of conjecture, and such calculations,
however ingenious, must be purely inferential; whereas
the age of the 80-tree is matter of record, its conservancy
has been an object of solicitude to successive dynasties, and
the story of its vicissitudes has been preserved in a series
of continuous chronicles amongst the most authentic that
have been handed down by mankind.
Compared with it the Oak of Ellorslio is but a sapling ;
and the Conqueror's Oak in Windsor Forest, barely numbers
half its years. The yew-trees of Fountain Abbey are be-
lieved to have flourished there twelve hundred years ago ;
the olives in the Garden of Gethsemane were full grown
when the Saracens were expelled from Jerusalem ; and the
cypress of Soma, in Lombardy, is said to have been a tree
in the time of Julius Crosar • yet, the 80-tree is older than
the oldest of these by a century, and would almost seem to
verify the prophecy pronounced when it was planted, that
it would " flourish and be green for ever."
The degree of sanctity with which this extraordinary
tree has been invested in the imagination of the Buddhists,
may be compared to the feeling of veneration with which
Christians would regard the attested wood of the cross. To
it kings have even dedicated their dominions, in testimony
of their belief that it is a branch of the identical fig-tree
under which Gotama Buddha reclined at Uruwelaya, when
he underwent his apotheosis. When the king of Magadha,
in compliance with the request of the sovereign of Ceylon,
was willing to send him a portion of that sanctified tree to
be planted at Anarajapoora, he was deterred by the reflec-
tion that "it cannot be meet to lop it with any weapon ;"
but, under the instruction of the high priest, using ver-
milion in a golden pencil, he made a streak on the branch,
which, "severing itself, hovered over the mouth of a vase
filled with scented soil, into which it struck its roots and
descended. Taking the legend as a sacred law, the Buddhist
priests to the present day object religiously to "lop it with
any weapons," and are contented to collect any leaves
which, severing themselves, may chance to fall to the
ground. These are regarded as treasures by the pilgrims,
who carry them away to the remotest parts of the island.
In the part devoted to the consideration of " The
Southern and Central Provinces," we meet with
details of the manners and customs of the
people, which are at all times most interesting
to dwell upon. The dress of the Singhalese is
very curious, the men arrange their hair like
females. It is worthy of notice that seventeen
hundred years ago Ptolemy alluded to the length
of hair among the people of Taprabane. " The most
precious inheritance of a Singhalese is his ancestral
garden of cocoa nuts, the attempt to impose a tax
on which roused the populace to rebellion; and it is
curiously illustrative of the minute subdvision of
property in Ceylon that in a case which was decided
in the district court of Galle within a recent period,
the subject in dispute was a claim to the 2,520 th
part of ten cocoa nut trees." It is observed that in
no quarter of the world does the cocoa nut flourish
in such rich luxuriance as in this part of Ceylon,
and all that has been told of the advantages accruing
from the bread fruit and other plants is as nothing
compared with the blessings conferred on Ceylon
by this inestimable palm. The Singhalese even
assert that it pines when beyond the reach of the
human voice, and declare with excitement and pride
the "hundred uses" to which it may be applied.
A most pleasing description is given of the scenery
around Galle, the road being one continuous avenue
of cocoa nut trees. " The enjoyment of the scene
was indescribable; the cool shade of the palm-
groves, the fresh verdure of the grass, the bright
tint of the flowers that twined over every tree, the
rich copper hue of the soil, and the occasional
glimpse of the sea through the openings in the dense
wood, all combined to form a landscape unsurpassed
in novelty and beauty." The travellers were, how-
ever, incommoded with the inseparable drawbacks
of hot climates, and the chief of these were the mos-
quitoes; it is here stated its characteristics are so
remarkable as fully to justify the supposition that
the mosquito was the plague inflicted u pon Pharaoh,
and not the ordinary fly This conjecture seems
based on most valid grounds, and the description
given of the insidious insect certainly fulfils the idea
that the aggregate of such a tribe would be a far
more grievous inflction that the presence of the
common fly. The cinnamon groves of Cey-
lon have often been descanted upon, and some
space is, of course, given to their history, but the
glory has, in a manner, departed. It is said that
" this renowned laurel, once guarded among the
treasures of the Indies, is now comparatively ne-
glected for the homely but more profitable palm ;"
and again, that the " present aspect of the cinna-
mon gardens which surround Colombo exhibits
the effects of a quarter of a century of neglect." It
is, indeed, melancholy to learn that these far-famed
spots are relapsing into wilderness, and that, while
all writers on Ceylon have dwelt on their beauty
and luxuriance, henceforward it will remain to
speak of their decay. Among the other supersti-
tions of the people they assert that, at Kandy, the
" sacred tooth of Buddha" is preserved. It is, how-
ever, supposed, on most anquestionabl.e authority,
that this wonderful relic was destroyed, and that
the tooth now exhibited is a substitute ; but if the
inhabitants choose to deceive themselves, they will
doubtless derive as much benefit from the latter
production as from the former one. The remarks
on the coffee regions are well deserving of notice ;
the amount produced is really remarkable, as the
following passage will show :
Should prices in Europe continue such as to encourage
enterprise in Ceylon, and no unforeseen occurrences ob-
struct the influx of immigrant labour in India, Mr. Fergu-
son looks forward to the day when a quarter of a million
of cultivated acres, together with the native corps, may
furnish two million cwt. of coffee as the annual production
of the island.
However large this estimate may seem, it must be borne
in mind that the actual expansion of the trade has hitherto
justified in every previous conjecture as to the capabilities
of the colony ; within twenty years, the value of the collSe
exported has risen from £107,000 in 1837 to £1,296.733 in
1857; and whatever uncertainty may bo felt for the future,
as to the probable consumption of a production so immensely
augmented, it must be borne in mind that already markets
are
opening in which the demand seems susceptible of al-
most infinite extension. France, last year, received more
a very conside-
than one-third of the coffee sent from Ceylon;