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As previously described, at the base of the mountains are cultivated rice-lands, generally known as paddy-fields, where numerous villages have sprung up from the facility with which a supply of water is obtained from the wild mountains above them.
Cruel modes of punishment being forbidden, the planters look upon the rice-lands as valueless. Time will show whether these fears are to be realized or not. If it should really happen that the negroes refuse to labor where their lives are of comparatively short duration, the country must consent to restore slavery to its former status, or purchase its rice in foreign countries.
The mere feeding, I might almost say, of a dozen laborers in Liberia, will cost more than all the coffee they raise would re-imburse, at the Cuba prices. The cultivation of rice is universal in Africa. The natives never neglect it, for fear of famine. For an upland crop, the rice-lands are turned over and planted in March and April.
Hundreds of little rivers, that had not even left their beds marked upon the land, burst into being like a new kind of swarm; and many like these poured into the Pasig, which swelled, became thick and angry with the drain of the hills, the overflow of the rice-lands, and the filth and fever-stuff of the cities. At last, the constant din of the rain became a part of the silence.
Thus the circulation of air is impeded and disease again halves the population. In each successive year the wretched inhabitants are thinned out, and disease becomes the more certain as the jungle continues to advance. At length the miserable few are no longer sufficient to cultivate the rice-lands; their numbers will not even suffice for driving their buffaloes.
The exit of the water was then regulated by means of sluices, from which it was conducted by channels to the rice-lands. These tanks are of various extent, and extremely numerous throughout Ceylon. The largest are those of Minneria, Kandellai, Padavellkiellom, and the Giant Tank.
Over the balcony rail, they watched the Pasig running wickedly below; and across, stretching away to where the stars lay low in the rim of the horizon, the wet teeming rice-lands brooded in the night-mist.... The piano, which had seemed unstrung from the voyage, as he passed through the house, sounded but faintly now through several shut doors. The fragments were mellifluous....
Gold, silver, copper, and iron are abundant. The forests have an abundance of hard woods that sooner or later will find a market both in Europe and America. The rice-fields will easily produce enough grain for the whole population, and a considerable amount to sell in addition, when all the rice-lands are cultivated.
For want of good wagon roads and railways only a small part of the rice-lands are cultivated. There is an abundance of good grazing land that will produce meat for twice the present population. Most of the cattle now grown in the islands are of the kind found in India. The most common beast of burden, however, is the carabao, or water-buffalo. What an ugly looking beast it is!
The land laws of the Daiho era, like those of the Daika, were based on the hypothesis that all land throughout the country was the property of the Crown, and that upon the latter devolved the responsibility of equitable distribution among the people. Rice being the chief staple of diet and also the standard of exchange, rice-lands that is to say, irrigated fields were regarded as most important.
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