44 COFFEE : ITS CULTIVATION AND PROFIT. 



if exactly correct, the final reading in the bottom right-hand 

 corner was the same for both. Thus it was impossible to 

 make a mistake of even a pie without being able to discover 

 it ; but at the same time, among so many densely packed 

 columns, it w r as difficult to avoid small errors, which would 

 show up large in the final result, and cause a vast amount 

 of trouble to correct. Thus I had to call each coolie's name 

 first of all, and, if he had been working all day, put him down 

 in the Saturday column with a mark ; then add up his total 

 work for the week say five and a-half days put this down in 

 the space devoted to it, calculate five and a-half days at five 

 annas a-day (the rate at which we pay our men), put down 

 Rs. i na. 2p. in the pay space, count .it out of the heap of 

 coinage at my elbow, give it to the man, and dismiss him. 



"This may sound simple enough, but there were many 

 little difficulties to be surmounted. When I began calling the 

 fearful and wonderful Tamil and Canarese names there was a 

 general titter round the circle, and three or four men answered 

 at once, my pronunciation being so shaky that they could not 

 distinguish whose name it was. However, I suppressed the 

 giggling, and having obtained ' silence in the court,' forged 

 slowly ahead, every now and then making some mistake which 

 set the natives smiling, but getting slowly into the way of the 

 pronunciation, and running up the sums and counting out the 

 change like a booking clerk. Often a coolie would conclude 

 he had not got the right amount, and open a discussion, which 

 I had to cut very short ; and fifty per cent, of them thought 

 their rupees were bad, so that from all sides rose the sound of 

 money being chinked upon the rock to test its ring. Each 

 native, as he came up, salaamed and held out both his hands, 

 to receive the overflowing bounty of the sahib. 



" Poor people ! The strongest man amongst them, who 

 had worked in the sun and rain all the week, only took six 

 times five annas about equal to three shillings and fourpence ; 

 and on this, of course, many had to support a wife and 

 children too weak or too feeble to work themselves. Then, 

 again, the women many of them mothers, with small, brown 

 fragments of humanity slung upon their backs got three 



