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and huddled together, and compelled to live in a 

 state of uncleanness revolting- to human nature, as 

 might be expected, Cholera and other malignant 

 diseases broke out with fearful effect. In some 

 instances ten per cent, of these wretched victims 

 were carried off in as many days. In others the 

 mortality reached to forty or Jifty per cent., in a 

 three weeks' voyage. With some truth may it be 

 said that the horrors of the slave trade pale before 

 the horrors of the coolie trade of Assam and Cachar 

 in the years 1861-62. Yet is the worst not yet 

 told. The dead feel no pains ; let us follow the 

 living. Arrived at their destination, many urged 

 that they were unequal to field labour, that they had 

 been engaged as artizans, menial servants, nay even 

 as priests of temples, at treble the rate of wages they 

 were offered. But the planters had contracted for 

 coolies, had paid for them, as such they had 

 signed contracts to serve as such for three or five 

 years they were able bodied, they must work. 

 But what of the weak, the halt, the maimed, and 

 the blind ? Kejected by the planters as useless, they 

 were turned adrift, to find their way, penniless, hun- 

 dreds of miles to their village homes, or, more 

 probably, to starve and to die ! The imagination of 

 the English reader will recoil with horror from such 

 a picture as this possibly reject it as purely imagi- 

 nary or untrue, yet nothing has been stated that 

 official documents have not recorded, and in India 

 it is a rule that in such cases, the worst is never 



