FROM TONKIN TO INDIA 



lbs. In Calcutta the pound fetches on an average from seven 

 to eleven annas. We visited a garden at Tala| The tea is not 

 planted on the hills but well in the plain, on round cleared but 

 not manured, with intervals of 4 or 5 feet between the bushes. 

 Two coolies are enough to an acre. When the leaves have 

 been picked, in March and September, the plant is cut back to 

 within 6 inches of the ground. The best seasons yield 900 lbs. 

 an acre per annum ; the tea begins to pay after three or four 

 years. The plantation at Talap was of 1,350 acres, and the 

 usual number of plants is 2,700 on an acre. 



In the centre of the plantation are the coolie villages, the 

 large two-storeyed bungalows of the Europeans, and the build- 

 ings where the leaf is prepared. These houses are often as 

 much as 130 feet long, built of bricks, with corrugated zinc roofs. 

 In some is the steam machinery, and in others the drying 

 process is carried on. 



The prosperity of the tea plantations of Assam is due not 

 only to the spirit of enterprise in those who made them, but 

 also in a large measure to the labour regulations. The coolies 

 are recruited in Bengal, whence the journey of each one costs a 

 hundred and fifty rupees ; and they engage of their own free will for 

 a term of three years. Should anyone during that time desert, 

 and be captured, he is first imprisoned and then handed over to 

 his master. Escape is not easy, for to stay in Hindu Assam is to 

 be retaken, and to seek refuge with the Singphos or the hill 

 tribes is to be enslaved. The intervention of the Government, 

 which we should call forfeit for breach of contract, secures the 

 employer. " If we had not this safeguard against any who 

 chose to break their agreement," said an overseer to me, "we 

 could not risk the capital which we put into the plantation." 



354 



