st and dense jungle were cleared and
burned over in the neighborhood of Kandy alone, at great expense and
labor, to prepare the ground for coffee planting. There was at one
time so much speculative energy evinced in this direction that nearly
every local government official was more or less engaged in it,
embarking therein all the money which he possessed or which he could
borrow. Well-engineered roads were opened into new and available
districts, while numerous substantial bridges were erected over
previously impassable streams, and thriving villages sprang up as if
by magic amid what was formerly wild and inaccessible jungle. In the
course of twenty years, the product had risen to so large an aggregate
figure as to astonish the commercial world, and the price of the berry
was consequently reduced in all the markets of Europe. Such good
fortune, it was finally discovered, was not destined to fall unalloyed
to the share of the Ceylon planters.

Some sacrifice must attend upon all such enterprises. In clearing the
forest lands for coffee planting, a most reckless waste was practiced
in Ceylon. Magnificent groves of valuable wood were cut down and
ruthlessly burned to ashes, among which were many of the precious
cabinet woods so highly prized all over the world. Among others were
some grand banian-trees, as we were told, which had a hundred great
stems and a thousand lesser ones. There are not many such trees as
these to be found in the known world.

It is but a few years since that a nearly simultaneous blight attacked
most of the coffee plantations on the island, coming in the form of a
strange fungus, which choked the breathing pores of the leaves, and
thus rapidly exhausted the trees. The Ceylon planters were struck with
consternation for a period; years of uninterrupted good crops had
filled them with confidence, so they had annually, by liberal
expenditure, cleared more ground, spreading out their plantations in
all directions. Large sums of money were sent out from England by
individuals desirous to enter into so promising a speculation, and the
aggregate sum said to have been expended in this purpose is almost
incredible. But the blight proved to be of the most serious character,
and was so wholesale as to literally impoverish many previously rich
agriculturists who had embarked their all in the business. The island
is very rich in fungi, and this one which had so effectually blighted
the coffee plants was quite