64 THE NATUKE AND CULTIVATION OF COFFEE. 



with the cost and vicissitudes with which it is unhappily 

 associated. Anxiety must be inseparable from an un- 

 dertaking exclusively dependent on immigrant labour, 

 and liable to be affected at the most critical moment 

 by its capricious fluctuations. No temptation of wages, 

 and no prospect of advantage, has hitherto availed to 

 overcome the repugnance of the Singhalese and 

 Kandyans to engage in any work on estates, except 

 the first process of felling the forests. Every sub- 

 sequent operation must be carried on by Coolies from 

 Malabar and the Coromandel coast, whose arrival is 

 uncertain and whose departure being influenced by 

 causes arising in India, may be precipitated by the 

 most unforeseen occurrences.* These labourers have 

 to be remunerated at high rates in the silver currency 

 of India, the value of which fluctuates with the 

 exchanges, and fed on rice imported for their exclusive 

 consumption, burdened with all the charges of freight, 

 duty, and carriage to the hills. The crop, when saved^ 

 on the estate, has either to encounter the risks in- 

 cident to transport by hand, through mountains as yet 

 unopened by roads, or the chances of deterioration to 

 which it is exposed in bullock carts during long 

 journeys to the coast. 



" Where circumstances enable the proprietor to be 

 resident on his own estate, and to superintend its 

 operations and control its expenditure in person, few 

 colonial pursuits present attractions superior to those 

 exhibited by Ceylon, either as to actual enjoyment or 



* In 1858 the number of Tamil labourers arriving in Ceylon was 

 96,000. The number taking their departure from the island was 50,000. 



