they reach the top, whence they descend to the ground in huge festoons, and, after including another and another tree in their successive toils, they once more ascend to the summit, and wind the whole into a maze of living network as massy as if formed by the cable of a line-of-battle ship.  When, by-and-by, the trees on which this singular fabric has become suspended give way under its weight, or sink by their own decay, the fallen trunk speedily disappears, whilst the convolutions of climbers continue to grow on, exhibiting one of the most marvellous and peculiar living mounds of confusion that it is possible to fancy.  Frequently one of these creepers may be seen holding by one extremity the summit of a tall tree, and grasping with the other an object at some distance near the earth, between which it is strained as tight and straight as if hauled over a block.  In all probability the young tendril had been originally fixed in this position by the wind, and retained in it till it had gained its maturity, where it has the appearance of having been artificially arranged as if to support a falling tree.

This peculiarity of tropical vegetation has been turned to profitable account by the Ceylon woodmen, employed by the European planters in felling forest trees, preparatory to the cultivation of coffee.  In this craft they are singularly expert, and far surpass the Malabar coolies, who assist in the same operations.  In steep and mountainous places where the trees have been thus lashed together by the interlacing climbers, the practice is to cut halfway through each stem in succession, till an area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final overthrow.  Then severing some tall group on the eminence, and allowing it in its descent to precipitate itself on those below, the whole expanse is in one moment brought headlong to the ground; the falling timber forcing down those beneath it by its weight, and dragging those behind to which it is harnessed by its living attachments.  The crash occasioned by this startling operation is so deafeningly loud, that it is audible for two or three miles in the clear and still atmosphere of the hills.

One monstrous creeping plant called by the Kandyans the Maha-pus-wael, or “Great hollow climber,"[1] has pods, some of which I have seen fully five feet long and six inches broad, with beautiful brown beans, so large that the natives hollow them out, and carry them as tinder-boxes.

[Footnote 1:  Entada pursaetha.  The same plant, when found in lower situations, where it wants the soil and moisture of the mountains, is so altered in appearance that the natives call it the “heen-pus-wael;” and even botanists have taken it for a distinct species.  The beautiful mountain region of Pusilawa, now familiar as one of the finest coffee districts in Ceylon, in all probability takes its name from the giant bean, “Pus-waelawa.”]

Another climber of less dimensions[1], but greater luxuriance, haunts the jungle, and often reaches the tops of the highest trees, whence it suspends large bunches of its yellow flowers, and eventually produces clusters of prickly pods containing greyish-coloured seeds, less than an inch in diameter, which are so strongly coated with silex, that they are said to strike fire like a flint.