de into a
dough by a proper admixture with water, and being formed into small
cakes, they are baked for about a quarter of an hour in a chatty. The
fermentation which has already taken place in the nut has impregnated
the flower with a leaven; this, without any further addition, expands
the dough when in the oven, and the cake produced is very similar to a
crumpet, both in appearance and flavor.

The village in which I first tasted this preparation of the sago-nut
was a tolerable sample of such places, on the borders of the Veddah
country. The population consisted of one old man and a corresponding
old woman, and one fine stout young man and five young women. A host
of little children, who were so similar in height that they must have
been one litter, and three or four most miserable dogs and cats, were
additional tenants of the soi-disant village.

These people lived upon sago cakes, pumpkins, wild fruits and berries,
river fish and wild honey. The latter is very plentiful throughout
Ceylon, and the natives are very expert in finding out the nests, by
watching the bees in their flight and following them up. A bee-hunter
must be a most keen-sighted fellow, although there is not so much
difficulty in the pursuit as may at first appear. No one can mistake
the flight of a bee en route home, if he has once observed him. He is
no longer wandering from flower to flower in an uncertain course, but
he rushes through the air in a straight line for the nest. If the
bee-hunter sees one bee thus speeding homeward, he watches the vacant
spot in the air, until assured of the direction by the successive
appearance of these insects, one following the other nearly every
second in their hurried race to the comb. Keeping his eye upon the
passing bees, he follows them until he reaches the tree in which the
nest is found.

There are five varieties of bees in Ceylon; these are all honey-makers,
except the carpenter bee. This species is entirely unlike a bee in all
its habits. It is a bright tinsel-green color, and the size of a large
walnut, but shaped like the humble bees of England. The month is armed
with a very powerful pair of mandibles, and the tail with a sting even
larger and more venomous than that of the hornet. These carpenter bees
are exceedingly destructive, as they bore holes in beams and posts, in
which they lay their eggs, the larvae of which when hatched greedily
feed upon the timber.

The honey bees are of