fortnight with my brother, who was then managing a cinchona plantation at Rambodde. He had a good bungalow surrounded by a large but rather wild and neglected garden, which seemed to be a particularly favourable spot for birds. The elevation of about 4,000 feet made the climate very pleasant, though the sun was hot in the day, and I collected about half of the thirty-seven species of birds peculiar to Ceylon, in the short time that I spent there.
Cinchona at that period was in a very flourishing condition as regards its growth, and owing to the scarcity of quinine, the bark was realising a very high price, which reached as much as 16s. per ounce for Howard's sulphate. Some of the planters cut their trees as fast as possible, and others sold their plantations at fancy prices, but those who held on had a very heavy loss to bear later, when disease became prevalent, and when the price of quinine fell to a point at which it became unprofitable to grow any but the varieties producing bark very rich in the sulphate.
To give an idea of the enterprise for which Ceylon planters have always been distinguished, I may mention the case of a Mr. Campbell. This gentleman, hearing that in the Dutch Government plantations in Java there was a variety named Ledgeriana, whose bark produced from 8 to 10 per cent, of sulphate as against 3 to 4 per cent, produced by the species C. succirubra, of which it is a variety, went to Java and purchased at a very high price all the seed he could get. He sowed the seed in frames in Ceylon and raised thousands of plants which, if I remember right, when he showed them to me, were selling at one rupee each. Thirty years later in Java I saw perhaps the very same trees which produced this seed, and by the courtesy of the Dutch manager I was able to take some of the seed, with which the Japanese Government started a plantation in Formosa.
I made a short trip to Newara Elia and ascended a peak of over 8,000 feet, but I was very much disappointed with the variety and abundance of the birds, plants and insects to be found at high elevations in Ceylon, as compared with those of a similar altitude in the Himalaya. I rejoined Godman, who had gone to see the Nilgiri Hills, and we returned together to England, having had a most enjoyable and successful tour.
