ApKih i, 1895.I THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
675 
The following prices were paid for sound b.' r'c : — 
Ceylon Cinchona— Original— Red varieties : Common 
poor and woody to fair bright quilly stem and branch 
chips, £d to i£d per 11), dull thin quill ^d, fair to good 
stem shavings jd to ljd ; root Jd to Id per lb. Grey 
varieties : common to fair quilly branch and stem chips 
id to l|d ; shavings Id to ljd ; good root 2Jd per lb. 
Yellow stem chips yd to ljd. Hybrid chips Id per. ,bl. 
Renewed— Red varieties : Ordinary to good bright quilly 
stem chips |d to l|d ; stem shavings lgd to i|d per lb. 
Grey varieties : Ordinary to fair quilly stem and branch 
chips |d to 2jd ; fair to good shavings ljd 2'd per lb. 
Hybrid stem chips lgd per lb. 
Coca Leaves— The 11 bales offered at today's auctions 
included some unusually tine bright green South American 
Truxillo leaves, which were bought in at Is 3d per lb. 
Vanilla— The fairly considerable supply offered at 
auction today sold steadily for good quality, while ordi- 
nary kinds were neglected. Fair crystallised, 7 to 75 inches 
20s ; good G to inches, 14s to 18s 6d ; ordinary foxy 
and brown mixed, from 10s to 16s Cd per lb. 
TEA AND SCANDAL. 
I send you this week a very queer brew of all 
sorts of Tea, gathered from fields of all ages and 
varying considerably in strength and quality ; but 
as tastes differ, and " some like pure and some like 
blends, so I may help to meet both ends!" 
The Oxford Sausage, 1815, p. 81. The Art of Preach- 
ing :— 
Begin with care, nor, like that curate vile, 
Set out in this high prancing stumbling style ; 
" Whoever with a piercing eye can see 
Through the past Records of Futurity": — 
All gape, mi meaning ; the puft orator 
Talks much, and says just nothing for an hour. 
Truth and the text he labours to display, 
Till both are quite interpreted away ; 
So frugal dames insipid water pour, 
Till Green, Bohea, or Coffee are no more. 
Do., p 220. Verses for 1770 :— 
Ye, too, whose houses are so handy 
For Coffee, Tea, Rum, Wine and Brandy ; 
• Pride of fair Oxford's grandy streets, 
Ye, too, our strain submissive greets ! 
Hear Horseman, Spiiullow, King and Harper I* 
The weather sure was never sharper. 
The Comforts of ~\Lu rimoiiy, by Ned Ward, junr. 
1780, p. 6!). Dialogue xxui. between an American 
Planter and his Wife: — 
At length full-flush'd with power and pride, 
While Britain proudly rode the tide, 
A cursed vaenl crew arose, 
■To Honour, Faith, and Virtue foes; * * * 
A Tax was then the general cry, 
And let the savage pay or die : * * * 
A Tax on Tea was first design'd, 
While various mischief lurk'd behind ; 
For all was meant as vile control, 
To subjugate the free-born soul. 
Do. p. 2iJ.">. Dial Lx'tv. Between a Custom House 
Officer and his contraband floods: — 
Wife. — Well. Frederick, tell me, what d'ye say 1 
What mischief hive you done today '. 
C S\0. — Nay, nothing:; but that pound often, 
Those handkerchiefs, and— let me seq— 
That 'little lot of China bowls. 
Liston's Drolleries 1825 Paul Pry's Description of 
London !>• Henries : — 
In London where cojuical- jokes do «•> free, 
There are comical modes of cheating : 
Birch brooms are cut up for Souchong and Bohea, 
And plaster for Bread you're eating. 
(Spoken) " How do you do, Mrs. Caphusalum, I 
hope you approve of the genuine tea " " Oh, yes, 
new brooms sweep clean, and I have no occasion to 
buy birch ones, while I deal at your shop for tea.'' 
In Accum's test you will find it clear, 
For spirits of wine, read royal gin ; 
Quashe and drugs they call small beer, 
And turtle soup is ox's shin. 
Moist sugar is made from the best red sand, 
New milk from whiting and water, 
sloe juice poisons half the land. 
And the weights get shorter and shorter. 
Turkey coffee is horse beans ground) 
Irish eggs are boil'd ill lime ; 
111 ev'ry trade (Inception's found, 
Kxcept it be in yours and mine. 
[ Spoken) " There's moro milk drank in London 
in a week, than all the cows in England could give 
in a fortnight," bays Bluuderskull, " How can that j 
be, you Pump?" "Why," says a plasterer, "two- 
thirds of it, you judy, is white-wash." 
Do. Tli e patent safety, or mho's for Brighton ? : — 
Who's for Brighton V the coach is just starting, 
Come take your places or you'll be too late, 
Drink up your tea and prepare for departing, 
Old Jarvey the coachman for no one will wait. 
The new safety coach does the journey in one day, 
For your luggage the porter is making his bow, 
It's only like driving to Hampstead on Sunday, 
So swift and so easy the ride is, I vow. 
Do. Lecture on Matrimonii, by Mr. Floyer. Good 
Temper: — "And this quarrel arose as they sat at 
breakfast : the lady very innocently observed, she 
believed the tea was made of Thames water : the 
gentleman would have it in mere contradiction, that 
the tea-kettle was filled out of the New River." 
As a finale I give you a few old proverbs with 
new faces from Mrs. Sheridan's Comic Offering. I 
explain the first and leave you and your readers 
to guess the rest. 
A cramp in season preserves three times three (A 
stitch in time saves nine). 
Light-complexioned sport is a diamond. 
Never relate long tirades concerning the bird of Mars 
or an Irish blunder. 
A combustible infant is terrified at caloric. 
Huge lamentations and a paucity of African hair. 
Large humourists are addicted to leaping. 
FiVerything is a reservoir that terminates a reservoir. 
; A. M. Ferguson. 
" DAYS OF OLD" BY AN UVA PLANTER. 
Uva, March 14. 
Here we are in mid-Lent, with 
TYPICAL WEATHER, 
Everything is dry — dry as a kuife-board, and if 
a peck of dust in March, as we say in my native 
country, is worth a king's ransom, why we could 
supply bushelfuls. What a clear warm morn it is, 
below there is a light-blue gauze veil over the Bin 
tenna hills presaging a burning hot day. 
Appu is off to tappal in an hour's time and I have 
to despatch my budget of scrawls by the podian. 
What shall I send you in this very hot weather — 
something lively and piquant and saucy to be sure. 
Say a few incidents by 
ROYAL MAIL COACH IN THE DAYS OF THE EVER MEMORABLE 
INDIAN MUTINY, 
and then as a sort of fringe to my story I will venture 
to write a few lines about U-alle aud its surround- 
ings and the country round about the ancient city. One 
of the very first journeys I made to Gallo from Colombo 
was in the fifties when the Observer's carrier pigeons flew 
overhead week by week and made aerial journeys 
2 or 3 times a week from Galle to Colombo con- 
veying most exciting telegrams under their wings ; 
and were basketed back without delay to the biblical 
and ancient town of Point-de-Gallo. It was the hot 
season in the lowcounlry. and my partner and self 
preferred the night coach, mure especially 
the n'oou was bright and cheery. and it was 
almost fullmoon when wo started. There was 0110 
inside passenger besides ourselves — a Colombo 
merchant on his way to Australia. He was a very 
old stager himself, and told us about the sugar 
estates that formerly were established on the sides 
of the Kalutara and l'anadure rivers, if I remember 
rightly — and how at times he had been obliged to 
camp out for successive nights; till the rain ceased 
and the river subsided. There was not a ferry- 
boat over the broad Kalutara river at that time. 
I forget its name. On the present occasion the coach 
bowled along without an event of importance till wo 
reached the Kalutara river where we had 
a very narrow escape; 
Just as the coach reached the fur end of the wooden 
bridge that spanned the river, the horses bucked 
and becamo so restive that the merchunt jumped out 
and I followed the lady sitting impassive mid ddued, 
aud immovable. As 1 Looked around me, stai ling 
on the bridge, I realized that two revolutions ot tbo 
