I was much
gratified, both in Ceylon and Assam, at noting how much of the
tea-making machinery is manufactured in Belfast, for though Ulster
enterprise is proverbial, I should never have anticipated it as taking
this particular line. There is one peculiarly fascinating machine in
which a mechanical pestle, moving in an eccentric orbit, twists the
flat leaf into the familiar narrow crescents that we infuse daily. The
tea-plant is a pretty little shrub, with its pale-primrose,
cistus-like flowers, but in appearance it cannot compete with the
coffee tree, with its beautiful dark glossy foliage, its waxy white
flowers, and brilliant scarlet berries.
Peradeniya Botanical Gardens rank as the second finest in the world,
being only surpassed by those at Buitenzorg in Java. I had the
advantage of being shown their beauties by the curator himself, a most
learned man, and what is by no means a synonymous term, a very
interesting one, too. Holding the position he did, it is hardly
necessary to insist on his nationality; his accent was still as marked
as though he had only left his native Aberdeen a week before. He
showed me a tall, graceful tree growing close to the entrance, with
smooth, whitish bark, and a family resemblance to a beech.
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