It was in the low-country gardens, connected with Peradeniya, that the Para rubber tree was first introduced from Brazil and many experiments made to discover the best methods of growth and tapping. [Illustration: RAINFALL. JUNE-OCTOBER.] The tea plant and rubber tree need plenty of warmth and moisture for their growth, and these conditions are only to be found 56 in part of Ceylon. In Colombo it is hot and wet for the greater part of the year, but in the early spring, though still hot, it is dry. Over all the lowlands there is no winter and summer in our sense of the terms, but only alternations of wet and dry. In the hills it is cooler than on the plains, though there is even more rain; but mainly owing to the structure of Ceylon the wet and dry seasons occur at different times of the year in different districts. The district near Colombo has most of its rain when the Southwest Monsoon blows from the sea in the summer; in the north and east of the island the winter is the wet season, when the northeast wind comes down from the Bay of Bengal. Here the rainy period is shorter than in the southwest, so that the total fall in the year is less, and the whole country is drier. The highland ridges, running from northwest to southeast, at right angles to the course of the winds, form a rough barrier and division between the two kinds of climate. At Niuwara Eliya we are not far from the dividing line. We may drive across a ridge or pass through a tunnel, leaving clouds and heavy rain behind us, and come out into clear skies and bright sunshine. The whole face of the country changes; in place of forest, plantation 57 and waterfalls, such as we see here, we find open moor and 58 grassland, or _patana_, with cattle grazing as on our own moors. 59 The contrast of seasons is so strong that the flowering periods of many plants on opposite sides of the mountains are six months apart, as they depend on variations of moisture rather than of temperature.