Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
from which all Europeans except a few traders at the port are jealously excluded, many hun-
dreds of square miles of irregularly undulating country have been so skilfully terraced and
levelled, and so permeated by artificial channels, that every portion of it can be irrigated and
dried at pleasure. According as the slope of the ground is more or less rapid, each terraced
plot consists in some places of many acres, in others of a few square yards. We saw them in
every state of cultivation; some in stubble, some being ploughed, some with rice-crops in
various stages of growth. Here were luxuriant patches of tobacco; there, cucumbers, sweet
potatoes, yams, beans or Indian-corn, varied the scene. In some places the ditches were dry,
in others little streams crossed our road and were distributed over lands about to be sown or
planted. The banks which bordered every terrace rose regularly in horizontal lines above
each other; sometimes rounding an abrupt knoll and looking like a fortification, or sweeping
round some deep hollow and forming on a gigantic scale the seats of an amphitheatre. Every
brook and rivulet had been diverted from its bed, and instead of flowing along the lowest
ground were to be found crossing our road half-way up an ascent, yet bordered by ancient
trees and moss-grown stones so as to have all the appearance of a natural channel, and bear-
ing testimony to the remote period at which the work had been done. As we advanced fur-
ther into the country, the scene was diversified by abrupt rocky hills, by steep ravines, and
by clumps of bamboos and palm-trees near houses or villages; while in the distance the fine
range of mountains of which Lombock peak, eight thousand feet high, is the culminating
point, formed a fit background to a view scarcely to be surpassed either in human interest or
picturesque beauty.
Along the first part of our road we passed hundreds of women carrying rice, fruit, and ve-
getables to market; and further on an almost uninterrupted line of horses laden with rice in
bags or in the ear, on their way to the port of Ampanam. At every few miles along the road,
seated under shady trees or slight sheds, were sellers of sugar-cane, palm-wine, cooked rice,
salted eggs, and fried plantains, with a few other native delicacies. At these stalls a hearty
meal may be made for a penny, but we contented ourselves with drinking some sweet palm-
wine, a most delicious beverage in the heat of the day. After having travelled about twenty
miles we reached a higher and drier region, where, water being scarce, cultivation was con-
fined to the little flats bordering the streams. Here the country was as beautiful as before,
but of a different character; consisting of undulating downs of short turf interspersed with
fine clumps of trees and bushes, sometimes the woodland, sometimes the open ground pre-
dominating. We only passed through one small patch of true forest, where we were shaded
by lofty trees and saw around us a dark and dense vegetation, highly agreeable after the heat
and glare of the open country.
