In Java the zone of the coffee-plantations extends between 3,000 and 4,000 feet above the level of the sea; and the primitive forest is constantly receding before them. Frequently, on felling the woods, a part of the original trees is left standing to shade the tender coffee-plants; but oftener the rows are made to alternate with those of the sheltering dadab. Thus a new and luxuriant grove replaces the old thicket of nature’s planting. Straight paths, kept carefully clean, lead through the dense, dark green shrubbery, under whose thick cover the wild cock hastily retreats when surprised by the wanderer. When the trees are in flower, the branches seem to bend under a weight of snow, from the number of dazzling white blossoms, which form a pleasing contrast to the dark and lustrous foliage, while high above, the dadabs extend their airy crowns, whose light green leaves are agreeably interspersed with flowers of a brilliant red. A few months later, when the fruits are ripening into carmine a scene of the most bustling animation ensues, for old and young are busily employed in plucking the swelling berries, and hurrying with filled baskets to the nearest pulping mill. In Ceylon the native woodmen are singularly expert in felling forest trees preparatory to the cultivation of coffee. Turning to advantage the luxuriance of tropical vegetation, which lashes together whole forests by a maze of interlacing climbers as firm and massy as the cables of a line-of-battle ship, their practice in steep and mountainous places is to cut half-way through each stem in succession, till an area of some acres in extent is prepared for the final overthrow. They then sever some tall group on the eminence, and allow it in its decent to precipitate itself on those below, when 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. The crash occasioned by this startling operation is so loud that it is audible for two or three miles in the clear and still atmosphere of the hills. Like the sugar-cane, or indeed any other plant cultivated by man, the coffee-tree is exposed to the ravages of many enemies. Wild cats, monkeys, and squirrels prey upon the ripening berries, and hosts of caterpillars feed upon the leaves. Since 1847 the Ceylon plantations have been several times invaded by swarms of the Golunda, a species of rat which inhabits the forests, making its nest among the roots of the trees, and, like the lemmings of Lapland, migrating in vast numbers when the seeds of the nillo-shrub (_Strobilanthes_), its ordinary food, are exhausted. ‘In order to reach the buds and blossoms of the coffee, the Golunda eats such slender branches as would not sustain its weight, and feeds as they fall to the ground; and so delicate and sharp are its incisors, that the twigs thus destroyed are detached by as clean a cut as if severed with a knife.’[19]