Manchurian Books

Matara is a pretty little town,
with a very neat mosque, broad streets, and walled houses, many of
which, indeed, are decorated with galleries, columns, or sculptures
of red sandstone.
The appearance of the country here is of monotonous uniformity--
boundless plains, on which orchards and meadows alternately present
themselves, the latter apparently quite scorched up in consequence
of the dry season. The corn was already a foot high; but such large
quantities of yellow flowers were mixed with it, that there was
great difficulty in telling whether corn or weeds had been sown.
The cultivation of cotton is of very great importance here. The
Indian plant does not, indeed, attain the height and thickness of
the Egyptian; however, it is considered that the quality of the
cotton does not depend upon the size of the plants, and that the
cotton of this country is the finest and the best.
I observed upon these plains little houses here and there, built
upon artificially-raised perpendicular mounds of clay, of from six
to eight feet high.


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