Indian chieftain. [volume] (Vinita, Indian Territory [Okla.]) 1882-1902, 1895-11-21
A LAND OF FLOWERS.
The Home of Rare Plants and Gay-Plum.
aged Birds.

There is an island lying Off the south
srn coast of India that truly deserves
the name OF Summer Land" 1t lies
directly In the road of two monsoons,
or winds, blowing over the Indian
ocean and the Bay of Bengal. These
winds bring frequent rains, so that the
always flowers in bloom, and, strange
to say, flowers, birds and insects are
found on this isle that do not exist on
the mainland, small as the distance is
between the two.
1t is a very paradise of humming
birds, in purple and gold and scarlet,
and of great filmy-winged butterflies,
of steely blue, and shining emerald,
velvety black and rich yellow, with
gorgeous spots of crimson and white
and green and ruby color. There are
swarms of sparkling frefiies, as small
on their part of the emerald butter
flies, six inches across the glistening
wings, are gigantic on theirs
The flowers repeat and mimic all
these insects The marvellous orchids
glitter with all the metallic hues of
the humming birds and butterflies,
and initiate their shapes. The moth
orchids look for all the world like a
cluster of gray, spotted, downy crea-
lures, clinging to a bough until the
dusk comes and awakens them to a
carnival with night-opening blossoms.
There are the beautiful dove and
swan flowers, the grotesque spider and
bee orchids, all mimics of life. The
fireflies find their duplicates in the
most microscopic orange or yellow
parasitic growths that emit a flicker
ing, undulating glow in the woods.
But none are more curious than
those flower brigands, the pitcher
plants They are treacherous and
cruel, for their leaf pitchers are full of
sweet and deadly lure to draw in
sects, and the inside is as slippery as
glass, and thickset with sharp hairs
like hooks and knives to hold their
poor victims fast.
Other flowers allure wandering in
sects very innocently, to effect an ex-
change of golden pollen dust, so that
these insects become traders or ped
dlers between one flower market and
another.
The water plants and water birds
seem made to match each other in
color; the lotus blossoms, eight inches
across their petals, and the water lilies
are pink and white, and the cranes and
fiamingoes are also pink and white.
Even the water pheasants are white,
that stand on the broad leaves of the
lotus as securely as on the ground and
feed on the lotus seeds
The colors of the jungle flowers, the
dazzling scarlet and gold and lavender
are repeated in golden oriole and gilt
tering peacocks and paroquets and
flaming parrots of scarlet and blue.
The green love birds, a variety of paro-
quet, with their rose-colored rings
around the throat, can hardly be dis
from a rose-colored blossom
nesting amid green leaves.
The forests abound in palms and
fern trees There are large cinnamon
nest and coo, and the high land,
the sacred mountain of pill
grimage, Adams Peak, is the favorite
locality of the rhododendrons, which
grow here to the forest trees in size,
and are glorious in color, scarlet,
cream and rose-tinted.
In January. our time of sleet and
frost, the island peaks are rich with
the splendor of their full bloom, and in
July they sink into their winters sleep.
or what is equivalent to the pause of
winter in this climate As in all trop-
ical countries, there are myriads of
blossoming vines; the ''moon-fower,"
a pearly-lined convolvulus that opens
its petals only at night: the passion
flower, the golden allamanda, and
thousands of others hide with their
luxuriant life strange ruins of ancient
cities, royal cities, contemporaries of
Babylon and Nineveh,. whose great
statues, columns, remains
of temples, palaces, innumerable
dwellings and wide avenues bear wit
ness to the multitudes that used to
throng the streets, now lost in the
knotted tangle of the Jungle
OF the old race that used to rule the
land centuries before the birth of
Christ, only few savages, hardly two
thousand in all, remain. In their
1warfish size, their stupidity and their
animal-lille life, they strongly resem-
BILE the Pygmies of the Africa banana
woods. These savages have, perhaps.
an advantage over the African in the
variety and abundance of the wild
fruit.
Not only bananas, but cocoanuts,
mangoes, plantains, the
bread-fruit, the big jack-fruit, growing
On the body of the trees, and produced
even nearer the ground, as its size and
weight increases, the delicious man.
yosteen, and the cashew, whose nut is
outside of the skin instead of within,
ike the cherry -stone.
There are two other queer vegetable |
banyan tree, each tree a |
yrove, whose roots grow in air. and |
he wild sensitive plant, with its pink
oells and its delicate, impressible |
caves
Let me tell you a story about this |
plant Mr.. Maturin Ballou was once |
Tisiting friend, and sensitive plant |
vas noticed in vigorous. luxuriant |
growth near the bungalow Mr.. Bal
ou's friend called his daughter of |
eleven years from the house.
Lena" he said, ''go and kiss the
nimosa."
The child did SO, laughing gleefully,
md came away, The plant gave no
oxen of shrinking from contact with
Ter.
Now" said the host, will you
ouch the plant, Mr.. Ballou?"
Rising to do so, he approached it
With one hand extended, and before it
lad come fairly in contact the nearest
pray and leaves wilted visibly.
The plant knows the child" said
Ter father, but you are a stranger"
This home of strange flowers is Cev-
on, place SO rich and rare that it has
'een called the Pearl of India" the
island" and is told of in
he Arabian Nights its wonderful
ems, rubies, diamonds, emeralds. tur-
noises, appealing strongly to the i'm
glnation of the eastern story-tellers