CEYLON COCOA ESTATE 41 



"missionary schools is, of course strictly Chris- 

 tian. In Government Schools the custom is, 

 " where no objection is offered, to read the 

 " Bible during the first hour. Attendance 

 " during that hour not compulsory, but pupils 

 "seldom or never absent themselves." They 

 then proceed to describe the splendid educa- 

 tional colleges in the large towns, but that has 

 nothing to do with our subject. 



On Raneetotem there are no Christians, 

 and only about half a dozen children attend 

 the school. The pupils are nearly all the 

 children of the head Kangany who believes in 

 the " higher education," and is therefore having 

 his children taught English. 



Our coolies have a Saami house (praying 

 house) on the Estate, where they keep a sacred 

 cobra, which they occasionally propitiate with 

 offerings of chickens and also milk, a spot 

 which I carefully avoid, but one evening Rob 

 took me to see it. The devotions performed 

 there must be of a very primitive kind. The 

 temple is simply a roof of thatch supported by 

 wooden posts, built in the midst of the cocoa 

 bushes, quite out of the sight of any path or 

 road. At one end is a huge ant-hill of conical 

 form in which lives the cobra, and in this lies 

 the sacredness of the spot. At the foot of the 

 ant-hill is a small earthen chatty, and a square 

 stone, about the size of an ordinary brick, a few 



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