CHAPTER X.
Wild Fruits--Ingredients for a "Soupe Maigre"-- Orchidaceous Plants--Wild Nutmegs--Native Oils--Cinnamon--Primeval Forests--Valuable Woods--The Mahawelli River--Variety of Palms--Cocoa-nut Toddy--Arrack--Cocoa-nut Oil--Cocoa-nut-planting--The Talipot Palm--The Areca Palm--Betel Chewing--Sago Nuts--Varicty of Bees--Waste of Beeswax--Edible Fungi--Narcotic Puff-ball--Intoxicating Drugs--Poisoned Cakes--The "Sack Tree"-- No Gum Trees of Value in Ceylon.
Among the inexperienced there is a prevalent idea connected with tropical forests and jungles that they teem with wild fruits, which Nature is supposed to produce spontaneously.

Nothing can be more erroneous than such an opinion; even edible berries are scantily supplied by the wild shrubs and trees, and these, in lieu of others of superior quality, are sometimes dignified by the name of fruit.
The guava and the katumbille are certainly very numerous throughout the Ouva district; the latter being a dark red, rough-skinned kind of plum, the size of a greengage, but free from stone.

It grows upon a thorny bush about fifteen feet high; but the fruit is too acid to please most palates; the extreme thirst produced by a day's shooting in a burning sun makes it refreshing when plucked from the tree; but it does not aspire to the honor of a place at a table, where it can only appear in the form of red currant jelly, for which it is an undeniable substitute.
Excellent blackberries and a very large and full-flavored black raspberry grow at Newera Ellia; likewise the Cape gooseberry, which is of the genus "solanum." The latter is a round yellow berry, the size of a cherry; this is enclosed in a loose bladder, which forms an outer covering.

The flavor is highly aromatic, but, like most Ceylon wild fruits, it is too acid.
The sweetest and the best of the jungle productions is the "morra." This is a berry about the size of a small nutmeg, which grows in clusters upon a large tree of rich dark foliage.

The exterior of the berry is brown and slightly rough; the skin, or rather the case, is brittle and of the consistence of an egg-shell; this, when broken and peeled off, exposes a semi-transparent pulp, like a skinned grape in appearance and in flavor.