THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [Aug. 1, 1899. 
ttiat miich of my system of working had been suspen- 
ded and new rules established. The monthly weeding 
wa3 stopped. Th"} coolies were given a half-holiday 
on Saturdays on full pay and other things changed 
that with some trouble I had established. I never 
knew by what representations Wise endeavoured to 
justify this action to the proprietor, but by return mail 
it was found that they had not served their ends. 
The orders were : — " Discharge the new man ; replace 
William in his former position. Let him build a 
suitable house for himself near his work and let his 
salary b.'* for the present £10 a month " — a case of 
Haman and Mordecai. 
Captain Dalrymple — Sir James Elpbinstone — had 
visited Ceylon about the end of 1842. Though not a 
blood relation he was a family connection of Mr. 
Maitland and an intimate friend, and visiting 
the estate never doubted that he would cot 
find the responsible manager in residence. He 
did not express his thoughts to me when he learned 
that the manager did not reside on the property and 
only visited it occasionally. He made it his business 
to enquire into Mr. Wise's character and it appeared 
that he had achieved a notable measure of notoriety. 
He further learned that Mr. Wise was a leader of 
the fastest set of young men that frequented the 
planting capital and all this he wrote to his friend 
and how much more I know not, only as I afterwards 
learned his remarks inferred that the person he 
found on the estate could not know much about 
planting, so that I had failed to make a favourable 
impression on the visitor. After this the role of 
keeping Mr. Maitland informed of the conduct of 
his employes was taken up by another correspondent ; 
and just as Wise was adversely criticised, I was 
commended : hence the slap in the face the former 
received in his effort to get rid of me. 
Still Mr. Maitland was reluctant to give up the 
young man that had been taken up at twelve years 
of age, educated at his cost and trained to business 
in his own office. He was the son of an attendant 
where Mr. Maitland kept his riding horse and 
the youngster was often trusted to bring him the ani- 
mal when he vifished to ride in the Park or elsewhere. 
Pleased with the intelligence and readiness of the 
boy, he took him as his own personal attendant, 
then sent to school where he made rapid progress 
and at sixteen he wrote a fine clerkly hand and 
was a first-rate arithmetician. He was then taken 
into the office and at eighteen was principal book- 
keeper of the firm. At twenty he was sent to 
Bombay to study Indian commerce in the house 
of Ritchie, Stewart & Co. All this time he had be- 
haved entirely to his patron's satisfaction. During 
his residence in Bombay the mercantile community 
of that city caught 
THE COFFEE MANIA 
and nothing was talked about but the fortunes to be 
made bycoSee in Ceylon. Small blame to a young fellow 
in the lead of older and more experienced people, 
enthusiastically writing to his patron in favour of 
the opinions daily expressed by the leading members 
of the community in which he moved. Having read 
those letters in Mincing Lane fifty-nine years ago, I 
did not detect then the utter absence of established 
fact and the confidence with which the most ex- 
travagant estimates were advanced. I had to learn 
by experience the fallacy of such, and learned 
to distrust all speculative estimates of cost and 
profits. Those letters convinced Mr. Maitland, how- 
ever, and he instructed Wise to go to Ceylon and 
secure a suitable tract of land. 
He got the best available in Ceylon, which was 
of small value, where hardly one man knew any, 
thing of soils, climates or how these affected the 
growth and cropping of the plant. He travelled to 
many districts and finally settled on Ambagamuwa, 
induced thereto by the fact that the high-class civil 
servants, the oldest European residents and conse- 
quently the best judges had selected that district 
AS the locality aa their own field of enterprise. 
Finding a suitable tract between the properties of 
the Government Agent of the Western and Central 
Provinces, he applied for it and cleared the boundaries 
of 1,000 acres. He had really worked hard for the first 
six months and endured a good deal of hardship ; but 
after getting the land surveyed, he set about in- 
demnifying himself for his privations. He set himself 
down in Kandy and cultivated the acquaintance of a 
rather wild set of youths who paid frequent visits 
on the spree to Kandy ; and up to the time of my 
arrival, no steps had been taken to begin work 
beyond what I have named. The habits he con- 
tracted at that period stuck to him ; company was 
a ruin to his life and the monotony and solitude 
of the estate, as it was in those days, death : he had 
no resources within his reach, he read no books, he 
attached himself to no science, he studied no art and 
a practical planter he never could have become. 
From the communications received about his at- 
torney's mode of life, Mr. Maitland in all probability 
recognised the fact that he was not the stufi that 
planters should be made of. He therefore arranged 
to give him an employment somewhat akin to that 
to which he had brought him up. This idea was 
the management of a 
GENERAL PLANTEHS' STOEE 
in Kandy which was duly established and large con- 
signments of goods and two assistants were 
sent out. At that time there was room for 
such an institution, but it did not thrive in Wise's 
hands and within a year it went into other hands 
at a heavy loss and was for many years carried 
on by James Affleck. 
Wise, then a married man, came up with his wife 
and her mother, as he said to settle down for good 
on the estate. He stayed a fortnight. 
The next news from home was that Jfr. Maitland 
had decided on a visit to Ceylon and named the day 
he would leave England. It was, however, a month 
later when he started and he went first to Bombay, 
where he stayed for two months before coming 
down to Ceylon. I had been twelve months in a house 
of my own and managed the field work with hardly 
any interference, There was then two other assist- 
ants ; they never did any field work. One being a house 
carpenter and the other a millwright, they found the 
small amount of work that satisfied them in the bun- 
galow, and a shed by way of coffee store and a couple 
of rooms iinder the same roof for their own residence. 
At length the day was named on which Mr. Blaitland 
was to leave Bombay for Ceylon, but we had had two 
months to think over what would happen ; and each 
had his own thoughts, but kept his own counsel. 
In my case it was the unexpected that came to pass. 
Wise came up with his family really to stay that time. 
Paterson was awaiting events in the hope that 
they would turn to his advantage and I was for good 
reasons easy in mind as to the course things might 
take. 
The last day of September, 1845, came. That day I 
had gathered 
THE FIRST COFFEE THE ESTATE YIELDED, 
and taken it into the store where I found all my three 
fellow-employes. They had been erecting the store and 
preparing it for work. I suppose the sneer with which 
I enquired if they had never seen a pulper at work was 
visible, but I left them to find out for themselves 
what was wrong. The next morning being Sunday, 
after giving the coolies their chits, I went to the 
store to see how the pulping had got on. They had 
at once discovered that as they had placed the pulper, 
the pulp fell into the steeping tank instead of the 
coffee : so they had reversed its position, but the upper 
chop had being fixed too near the cylinder and much 
of the coffee was injured. Paterson did not accept my 
advice with a good grace, but he made use of it. On 
return to my bungalow, I met Wise's horsekeeper who 
handed a note which I at once opened and read. It 
was short and to the point. Thus it ran : — 
" Having arranged to take the full management 
of the estate into my own hands from this date, be gooci 
