ess. From age to
age these magnificent trees remain in their undisturbed solitudes,
gradually increasing in their apparently endless growth, and towering
above the dark vistas of everlasting silence. No on can imagine the
utter stillness which pervades these gloomy shades. There is a
mysterious effect produced by the total absence of animal life. In the
depths of these forests I have stood and listened for some sound until
my cars tingled with overstrained attention; not a chirp of a bird, not
the hum of an insect, but the mouth of Nature is sealed. Not a breath
of air has rustled a leaf, not even a falling fruit has broken the
spell of silence; the undying verdure, the freshness of each tree, even
in its mysterious age, create an idea of eternal vegetation, and the
silvery yet dim light adds to the charm of the fairylike solitude which
gradually steals over the senses.

I have ridden for fifteen or twenty miles through one of these forests
without hearing a sound, except that of my horse's hoof occasionally
striking against a root. Neither beast nor bird is to be seen except
upon the verge. The former has no food upon such barren ground; and
the latter can find no berries, as the earth is sunless and free from
vegetation. Not even monkeys are to be seen, although the trees must
produce fruit and seed. Everything appears to have deserted the
country, and to have yielded it as the sole territory of Nature on a
stupendous scale. The creepers lie serpent-like along the ground to the
thickness of a man's waist, and, rearing their twisted forms on high,
they climb the loftiest trees, hanging in festoons from stern to stem
like the cables of a line-of-battle-ship, and extending from tree to
tree for many hundred yards; now felling to the earth and striking a
fresh root; then, with increased energy, remounting the largest trunks,
and forming a labyrinth of twisted ropes along the ceiling of the
forest. From these creepers hang the sabre-beans. Everything seems on
a supernatural scale--the bean-pod four feet or more in length, by
three inches in breadth; the beans two inches in diameter.

Here may be seen the most valuable woods of Ceylon. The ebony grows in
great perfection and large quantity. This tree is at once
distinguished from the surrounding stems by its smaller diameter and
its sooty trunk. The bark is crisp, jet black, and has the appearance
of being charred. Beneath the bark the wood is perfectly white