October i, 1889.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
HILLCOUNTRY PLANTING EEPOET. 
DODGES OF THE COOLY TRAFFICKERS — THE REVIVAL OF 
COFFEE AND PLANTING UNDER SHADE — UVA FOR 
TOBACCO — COTTON — RAILWAY STATIONS AS ADVERTIS- 
ING MEDIUMS FOR INTOXICANTS, 
20th August 1889. 
The traffickers in coolies have many dodges. We 
are all acquainted with the system of buying and 
selling which goes on among kangan : es, and which 
is one of the principal reasons for the fluctuating 
nature of our labour force. A cooly disappears, 
and you are told that he has bolted and taken one 
or two others with him. If you press for the reason 
why he left, it is because he disliked the master 
or the estate, and that to insist upon a task ere 
a full name was given, was too much for his 
proud spirit, so rather than endure it he had 
revolted and fled. An opportunity of this kind 
to have " a dig" at discipline, and cast discredit on 
the Western Dotion, that for a fair day's wage a 
fair day's work should be given, is muoh too 
precious to be neglected, but he is a very inex- 
perienced fellow indeed who is taken in with that 
kind of thing. You don't take long to learn the 
signs which indicate whether the deserters have 
decamped with the sanction of the kangani, or 
without it. When it is a real case of bolt, 
and the kangani is left without a settlement 
having been made, the daring act evokes a fine 
active spirit : the kangani simply overflows with 
energy, wants letters, wants warrants, institutes 
all kinds of inquiry, and the lapse of time 
has little effect on his burning desire to 
recapture the runaway, He laughB at distance, 
scorns fatigue, and the disappointment of an un- 
successful hunt whets rather than damps his ardour. 
The man who has been " squared" does not do 
this : although for politic reasons he may try to 
get up an enthusiastic indignation, yet it 's such a 
hollow affair, that it burns itself out in the very 
presence of his employer, and the man must be 
blind who fails to see that an understanding had 
been come to. 
Now, however, there is " another Richard in the 
field," and to the bartering kangani there has to 
be added the native hotelkeeper. This worthy 
seems to be winning his way into the affections 
©f the cooly — especially the wandering portion — 
for when the waist-cloth has been tightened, so 
that the gnawings of hunger may be leas keenly 
felt, the man who will give a meal on oredit, 
and a mat to sleep on, comes to be regarded as 
a benefactor. Of course the native hotelkeeper 
has his own objects in view. Kanganies, who have 
got advances for labour, come in to his hotel as 
well as others, and as the labour need is pressing, 
and to send to the Coast, then, out of the question, 
the hotelkeeper mentions the fact that several 
stray coolies have been staying with him for a 
week or ten days now, and if the kangani will 
give Rl a head, and settle what they owe 
for food, he will induce them to go with him. 
This takes at once, and the bargain is struck. A 
two days' stay at the native hotel works out seven 
at least, by those marvellous rules of arithmetic 
which apply almost solely in coolies' affairs, and 
not to speak of profit as a labour agent, the native 
hotelkeeper scores in his legitimate calling albeit 
in an illegitimate way. But when he parts with 
the cooliea he has been harbouring he gives them 
a little advice. And it is this :— If they are not 
satisfied with the kangani or the estate, they are 
going to, just come back to him, and he will 
keep them until they get employment elsewhere ! By 
this means he croates for himself a steady income, 
and the native hotel is becoming recognized among 
31 
our kanganies as a recruiting ground where a pro 
tern supply of labour can be got, and at not a 
very high cost either. A kangani who want3 to 
deal fairly would be suspicious of the "shothe- 
kadclai al" but some are simple, and some 
have not a very high sense of honour, and so the 
native hotelkeeper plays upon their weaknesses, and 
in a manner which is highly profitable to himself. 
The revival of Coffee, and with it the downfall 
of bug and leaf-disease, is becoming, like the big 
gooseberry in the dull season at home, the subject 
of a periodical paragraph. Is it true, however, 
or is it but that the wish is father of the thought ? 
Coffee about this is at present sadly stricken with 
leaf-disease, up to the best that was ever produoed ; 
but bug, I am glad to say, is not by any means rampant. 
The men who are going in for a renewed trial 
of Coffee under Shade are getting more and more 
impressed with the belief that when the shade tree 
is a Jicus — 400 to the aore— the chances of suocess 
are very muoh inoreased. I saw some coffee the 
other day, growing under one of those large trees, 
and for vigour and healthiness it would have 
matohed anything to be seen in the " days of old." 
If an extensive acreage would do as well as the 
patch I refer to, the revival of coffee in Ceylon 
would be an assured fact. Later on we will 
doubtless learn the outcome of this new combination. 
Tobacco growers in their search for land have 
invaded the benighted Province of Uva, and I hear 
that applications for large acreages have been made 
to the Government Agent there. If the company 
we heard of, that was to establish depots all over 
the country for the purchase of tobacco in the green 
state, were to move now, there is little doubt, but 
that the growing of "the fragrant weed" would be 
taken up very extensively. It is the favourite among 
the newest products. " Cotton " ! siid a man to me, 
who is ever ready to pioneer, — " Cotton ! why it 
is n't ' a patoh ' on tobacoo, and I have tried both." 
One of the Buddhist papers is protesting and 
drawing attention to the fact that the Government 
of Ceylon has of late allowed its railway stations 
to be used as advertising mediums for Intoxicatin g 
Drinks. From Nanuoya to Kalutara, there is hardl 
a station, where some whiskey cr another is no^ 
flauntingly placarded and brought before the tra 
veller's notice to the offence of those who would 
desire to see the people of Ceylon a temperate people 
and unacquainted with such drinks. 
All my sympathies are with the Buddhist writer, 
and it must have been through inadvertency that the 
Government has allowed part of its property to be 
abused in this way. Whiskey drinking among the 
natives could lead to nothing but evil ; and that the 
Powers-that-be, whose duty it is to do all they can 
to promote the elevation of the people, should be 
indirectly the means of promoting the reverse, is 
far from creditable. Has the Government no fear 
of Mr. Caine or Mr. Samuel Smith before its eyes ? 
for it would be an easy matter to get either of thoEe 
gentlemen in their place in the House of Commons 
to inquire why the Government of Ceylon should 
prostitute its property to further the consumption of 
an article which, if the natives indulged in, would 
lead only to disastrous results, or be to them as an 
abiding curse. Peppercorn. 
Dry Grain as Food. — Mr. Alfred Drieberg 
in an article on chena cultivation shortly to appear 
sU.es that an opinion prevails regarding dry grains 
(chiefly kurukkan and other millets grown without 
irrigation) that such grains are not inherently un- 
wholesome but are rendered noxious by bad pre- 
paration. This is a point which we cannot doub 
Mr. Drieberg will take means to settle by a series 
if experiments. 
