CEYLON COCOA ESTATE 21 



CHAPTER II 



I had scarcely settled down to my new life, 

 when an invitation arrived for a dance. Our 

 kind friends the M.'s had seized upon the 

 double excuse of a birthday, and also the two 

 days holiday at the time of the Tamil Thai 

 Pongal Festival to fix January 12th, for a sort 

 of house-warming party, on the occasion of 

 Mr. M. taking over the charge of a group of 

 cocoa Estates in Dumbera. Our invitation 

 having duly come, the vital question of transit 

 next presented itself. My son's horse was 

 lame, a great part of the road unfit for my 

 bicycle and ten long miles (and very long the 

 Ceylon miles are) had to be traversed ; so we 

 had recourse to the good-nature of a neighbour, 

 who lent us a bullock hackery, a vehicle which 

 demands a few words of description. Imagine 

 an Irish jaunting car, with the seats turned to 

 face fore and aft, at each corner an iron rod 

 which supports a waterproof canopy. The 

 hackery has a pole, to this at the carriage end 



