A perpetual and hurrying
change is visible in all things. A few showers, and the surface
of the earth is teeming with verdure; a few days of drought, and
the seeds already formed are falling to the earth, springing in
their turn to life at the approach of moisture. The same
rapidity of change is exhibited in their decay. The heaps of
vegetable putridity upon the banks of rivers, when a swollen
torrent has torn the luxuriant plants from the loosened soil, are
but the effects of a few hours' change. The tree that arrives at
maturity in a few years rots in as short a time when required for
durability: thus it is no mystery, that either a house or a city
should shortly fall to decay when the occupant is gone.
In like manner, and with still greater rapidity, is a change
effected in the face of nature. As the flowers usurp the place
of weeds under the care of man, so, when his hand is wanting, a
few short weeks bury them beneath an overwhelming mass of thorns.
In one year a jungle will conceal all signs of recent
cultivation. Is it, therefore, a mystery that Ceylon is covered
with such vast tracts of thorny jungle, now that her inhabitants
are gone?
Throughout the world there is a perpetual war between man and
nature, but in no country has the original curse of the earth
been carried out to a fuller extent than in Ceylon: "thorns also
and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.
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