aid of water, the latter on dry hill slopes,
without irrigation. The one yields a rich,
nutritious grain, in great abundance, the
other, a thin, and husky rice, fit only for the
food of cattle, or the very poorest class of
natives. With this last-mentioned description
of grain, there is scarcely any attempt
at cultivation, in a European sense of the
word, nor is there any feature about it, worthy
of notice; so that the reader will readily excuse
me for passing to the more interesting
subject of the ordinary field rice of the East.

A corn field in the ear, a hop plantation in
bud, a cherry orchard in full blossom, a
bean field in flower, are lovely sights to
look upon; yet, I have beheld one more
beautiful. A rice field half grown in age,
but fully developed in the rich velvet beauty
of its tropic green, bending to the passing
sea-breeze, amidst a cooling bath of limpid
water, with topes of cocoa-palms clustering
about its banks, and here and there groves
of the yellow bamboo sweeping its bosom
with their feathery leaves; above, flights of
gaily plumaged paroquets, or gentle-voiced
doves, skimming in placid happiness across
the deeply rich azure of the tropical sky,
is a scene worth all the toils and privations
of an eastern voyage to gaze upon.

A more unpromising or uninviting prospect
can scarcely be imagined than the same
fields when being prepared for the grain, at
the usual sowing time, just as the first rains
of the changing monsoon begin to fall.
Saturated with water, the soil wears all the
attributes of slushiness. Far as the eye can
reach along the ample valley lays one dull,
unbroken vista of rice-land, ankle-deep in rich
alluvial mud. No cheerful hedgerows;
nothing by which, at a distance, one can
distinguish one field from another. Here
and there a long, irregular earth-mound,
crowned with rambling stones, marks the
boundary-line of Abrew Hickrema Apoohamey,
and divides his humble forty ammomuns
of rice-land from the princely domains of
Adrian Hejeyrasingha Seneratane Modliar.

Heavy showers have fallen; the fat, thirsty
soil has drunk deep of the welcome down-
powerings from above, and thus, whilst it is
in rich unctuous humour, the serving-men of
the humble Apoohamey, and the lordly
Modliar, ply it liberally with potations of the
buffalo-plough. It is quite as well that the
stranger traveller is informed of the nature
of the operation which is going on before his
perplexed eyes, otherwise he would be sorely
puzzled to know what it all meant: why the
pair of sleepy-looking buffaloes were so patiently
wading, up to their portly stomachs,
in regular straight walks, through the sea of
slushy quagmire, and why the persevering
native followed them so closely, holding a
crooked piece of stick in his hand, and urging
them, occasionally, with a few oriental
benedictions. On drawing near to the muddy,
nude agriculturist, you perceive that the
buffaloes are tied, with slight pieces of string,
to the further end of along, rambling,
queer-looking slip of wood, which they are dragging
deliberately through the slimy ground, a few
inches below the surface, and at the other end
of which appears to be tied likewise, the
apathetic Indian ploughman.

It needs all the faith one can muster to
believe that this actually constitutes the
ploughing operation of eastern countries.
You have no doubt about the man, nor the
buffaloes; it is the plough that is so intenselyq
uestionable. It bears no likeness to any
kind of implement—agricultural, manufacturing,
or scientific—in any part of the world.
Still, there is a faint, glimmering, indistinct
impression that you have somewhere met
with something of the sort, or that you have
dreamed of something like it. A sudden
light bursts upon you, and you recognise the
thing,—the entire scene—man, buffaloes,
and sticky plough. You have seen them
represented in plates of Belzoni's discoveries
in Egypt, and in Layard's remains of Nineveh.
There they all are—as veritable, as
formal and as strange—as were the Egyptian
and Ninevite agriculturists, I'm afraid to say
how many centuries ago. It was precisely
the same set of cattle, man, and plough, that
sowed the corn that Joseph's brethren went
down from the land of Canaan for, when they
heard there was corn in Egypt. It was just
such culture as this, thousands of years since,
that raised the ears of corn that were found
entombed in the mummy's hand, by Mr.
Pettigrew, some few years ago.

There is nothing peculiar in the Cinghalese
mode of sowing their grain, further than that,
like other orientals, they blend a certain
portion of superstition and religious observance
with every operation of their primitive
agriculture. The village priest must be consulted
as to the lucky day for scattering the
seed; and an offering at the shrine of Buddha
is necessaiy to secure the protection of his
Indian godship; in addition to which, small
bouquets of wild flowers, and the tender leaflets
of the cocoa palm are fastened on sticks,
at each corner of the newly-sown field, in
order to scare away any evil spirits that
might otherwise take it into their mischievous
heads to blight the seed.

In an incredibly short space of time, the
rice-blades, of a lovely pale green, may be
seen peeping above the slushy soil, and, in a
few more days, the tiny shoots will be some
inches high. Then they are treated to a cold
bath, from the nearest tank, bund, or river,
as the case may be, the supply of water
necessary to cover the field as high as the
tops of the growing corn being brought to it
by means of water-courses, or mud-and-stone
aqueducts. In the hilly country of the interior,
as before stated, these water-courses
even as now existing, and of a comparatively
humble description, are marvellously made
and managed.  For many miles the tiny