CEYLON COCOA ESTATE 45 



beef and mince pies with first rate coffee to 

 follow. On Ceylon Estates there is a very 

 complete system of supervision. Where 

 several belong to the same company, the 

 manager is supposed to visit each frequently to 

 see that the assistant superintendent is doing his 

 work properly ; and once in three months the 

 visiting agent comes to look up the manager, 

 and also each of the assistant superintendents, 

 so that anything going wrong, or any slack 

 work, would be at once detected. In the same 

 way the accounts pass through the manager's 

 hands and have also to be examined and 

 passed by the agent. All this carefulness 

 ought to be very reassuring to English in- 

 vestors, for their interests are most strenuously 

 guarded ; but the risk of failure to crops owing 

 to bad seasons and disease no one can forsee 

 or avoid. 



Raneetotem is so surrounded by jungle, 

 that it seems to be a happy hunting ground 

 for wild animals. Besides wild pigs and 

 buffaloes, we have wild deer of three kinds, 

 who are, however, very shy, and seldom 

 show themselves ; also an occasional cheetah — 

 one was seen lately in a grass field close to 

 the bungalow — jackals, hares, and porcupines. 

 The jackals now and then make night hideous 

 with their horrid howls, and are sometimes so dar- 

 ing that they come up almost to our verandah in 



