al cash-box well lined.

As in other Asiatic countries, the staple food is rice. Strange to say,
Ceylon produces of this only half what is demanded by the people. Hence,
it is necessary to import eight million bushels from India and Malay
regions, costing approximately $5,000,000. On the other hand, the island
sends to Europe and America annually $21,000,000 worth of tea, besides
considerable quantities of rubber, cocoanut-oil, cacao, and plumbago.
Ceylon's crude rubber commands the highest price, and is a crop growing
by leaps and bounds. It is estimated that eight hundred million
cocoanuts are grown yearly in Ceylon. An item in the list of exports is
elephants. These go to India as beasts of burden and pleasure, and the
government collects two hundred rupees for every elephant sent from the
island.

There is a possibility of two great events any springtime in Ceylon, and
the prospect of either occurring is a theme of endless small talk in the
offices and bungalow homes of everybody connected with "Government." One
is the elephant kraal, planned for the edification of His Excellency the
Governor and a few officials and visitors of distinction, who, from
cages in trees at elevated points insuring safety, look down upon the
driving in of converging herds of elephants. When an earth-strewn
flooring of bamboo gives way and the monarchs of the jungle are cast
into a stockaded pit, the kraal is complete. Then, ordinarily, the
Ceylon treasury undergoes drafts for forage, until an authorized
functionary negotiates the sale of the animals to maharajahs and lesser
worthies up in India.

A kraal occurs every four or five years, or when a British royalty
happens in Ceylon. Each governor is entitled by custom to the semi-royal
honor at least once during his incumbency. The kraal is an enterprise
usually paying for itself, unless there be a glut in the elephant
market. The last kraal failed dismally, nevertheless, but for a very
different reason. The drive had been so successful that the stockade was
full to overflowing with leviathan beasts trumpeting their displeasure
and wrath. While the dicker for their sale in India was proceeding, they
became boisterously unruly, and, breaking down their prison of palm-tree
trunks, scampered away to forest and jungle, without so much as saying
"thank you" for weeks of gorging on rations paid for out of the public
cash-box. And this was the reason why the kraal arranged for last year
was aba