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Imperial Gazetteer of India, v. 1, p. 49.

I ] .PHYYSICAL ASPECTS 49 full of life and colour, derived from the flights of myriad butterflies which fill the air with gaudy glitter, and the gaily- dressed Tamil people who gather in bunches on the banks of the great four-sided Buddhist tanks absorbed in eternal gossip. The clear spaces of Ceylon are to be found in the plantations of cocoa, coffee or tea, or in the midst of the rice-fields. Cocoa cultivation favours a growth of shade trees, and a cocoa estate therefore presents a natural charm some- times wanting in the stiff lines of tea cultivation, which cover the undulating hills up to an altitude of about 6,ooo feet as with a dark-green vestment. Since the failure of coffee, tea plantations have become the prominent feature in Singhalese mountain landscape. T. H. HOLDICH. VOL. 1. I