South Asia: Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Islands of the Indian Ocean - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 262

northeast through February . From March to April, sum-
mer insolation and forested uplands generate convec-
tional rainfall. Moisture-sodden warm air rises, cools,
and condenses, resulting in late afternoon downpours.
Sri Lanka is tropical with little temperature varia-
tion. In fact, nocturnal-diurnal variations are greater
than seasonal ones. Although temperatures rarely rise
above the low 80

ture the Arab sea trade, stopped at Galle and set up spice-
trading operations. They also demolished Buddhist and
Hindu religious sites and forced conversions to Christian-
ity . Further, they captured the mountain kingdom of
Kandy and removed its most sacred relic—an alleged
tooth of Buddha. The tooth eventually found its way back
and is currently housed in Kandy' is T Temple of the T Tooth.
A century later the Dutch arrived (1658) and ousted
the Portuguese. They pursued commercial development,
but as a result of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, were
forced to turn over the island to the British in the nine-
teenth century . The Dutch introduced the island' s first
commercial crop: coffee. But the coffee trade was under
challenge from Brazil, and it was ruined by blight during
the British period. The British then turned to cinchona
and tea.
Cinchona is extracted from tree bark and was the
only treatment for malaria, widespread at the time. Even-
tually numerous other plantation/estate crops were
grown (e.g., rubber, coconuts, cacao, and pepper). Estates
were nationalized in the 1970s but reverted to private
management in the 1990s. Sri Lanka is still one of the
world' s top tea exporters. T Tea accounts for about 75 percent
of the country' s income (Figure 9-10).

C), the sun' s verticality induces
high evaporation rates. This makes irrigation essential,
especially in the east. Aridity is a traditional problem.
Ancient civilizations fell not simply to invasio but
to the destruction of their irrigation systems. More-
over, dry zones were malarial until the end of World
War II and the introduction of the use of DDT . With
lack of moisture and the presence of killer mosquitoes,
colonization schemes of the dry zone were dismal failures
before 1945. Karst topography in the Jaffna Peninsula
allows the drilling of wells into limestone aquifers.
Water availability was pivotal to ancient settlement.
Around 500 BC , Sinhalese settlers developed elaborate
water storage and distribution systems. Property owner-
ship was based on the control of water, not land. Canals
reached 50 miles (31 km) in length, and the Sinhalese
devised water-control valves at dams to accommodate
variation in water pressure. These preceded European
devices by 1,500 years!

F (25

Tea: The Global Beverage

THE INDIAN CONNECTION
Sri Lanka' is history is replete with invasions from India. The
Sinhalese, descended from the Aryan invaders of Northern
India, migrated via the islands and sandbars of the Palk
Strait from the fifth to third century BC .In time they became
Buddhist. In the seventh century there were Hindu, Tamil
invasions. In 1017, Ceylon became part of India' s Chola
Empire. Its history is marred by friction and fragmentation.
The Buddhist Sinhalese complex of Anuradhapura,
with its 15-mile (24 km) walled perimeter, supported more
than a million people based on an irrigated rice economy .
In an elaborate interlocking system, rivers were channeled
to storage tanks, from which diversion channels delivered
water to villages. This was one of the most elaborate irriga-
tion complexes ever conceived. However, by the time the
Europeans arrived, warfare had reduced the settlement to
ruins and the area had become an overgrown wilderness.

More people drink tea than any other beverage
(aside from water) in the world. Ancient Chinese
texts describe tea as an elixir. T Today tea is touted
for its antioxidant properties. T Tea is widely em-
ployed as a social medium. I have enjoyed tea on
many occasions around the world: “China” cups of
black tea in England; small glasses of mint tea in
Morocco, cups of steaming milk-tea in Pakistan;
glasses of spicy chai in India; and cups of aromatic
green tea in China. Socioeconomic interchange is
eased via the ceremony of tea drinking.
T Tea diffused from China to Japan, where at first
it was used medicinally and in Buddhist monaster-
ies to enhance meditation. Subsequently it spread
to Korea. The British introduced tea to India and Sri
Lanka in the nineteenth century , and the tea trade
contributed significantly to the fortunes of the
British East India Company .
T Tea flourishes best in the cooler air from 3,000
to 7,000 feet (900-2,150 m). T Tea trees are kept
small with hand pruning, which stimulates growth.

EUROPEAN IMPACTS
The sixteenth century witnessed dramatic alterations in
Sri Lanka' s state of affairs. The Portuguese, striving to cap-