42 COFFEE: ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



straight. Even when all the natives present at 

 muster have been told off and started with their 

 tools, the day's troubles are only beginning ; for 

 no sooner are they clear of the settlement, and 

 winding along the narrow jungle paths, than they 

 make all sorts of attempts to escape and get back 

 to their huts, hoping, by being present at the morn- 

 ing muster and again at evening roll-call, that their 

 absence during the day will not have been noticed, 

 and so they may get pay for doing no work. 



Then, when the constant supervision of the day's 

 work is over, comes the evening roll-call, and at 

 the end of the week roll-call and pay-muster in 

 one. Perhaps I may be permitted to quote here 

 a suggestive sketch of a Saturday evening muster, 

 showing how coolies are paid off at the end of the 

 week on Indian and Ceylon estates : 



" The first pay-day in the jungle is always a difficult one 

 for the new arrival, especially when he has to be his own 

 paymaster to the forces, his cashier and clerk all rolled in one. 

 The coinage is strange to him, and he is sure to get more or 

 less mixed up in his pice, annas, and rupees, unless he has 

 a head better fitted for a mercantile desk at home than the 

 backwoods. Most of those who try Coffee planting have souls 

 above mathematics, and to them their first experience of 

 paying a horde of coolies (who, like all natives, dote on litiga- 

 tion) will be long remembered as a dies ivce. Still it is a thing 

 which has to be done, however unpleasant ; but I feel for 

 King James of blessed memory, who naively remarked when 

 receiving a petition to pay his Scotch bills, Of all petitions 

 this is the one which his Majesty liketh least.' 



" Unfortunately for me, the next day after R 's flight 



to the lowlands was Saturday, and all day long I was 



