( 2 ) 
Gordon and his young Assistant;soon became close 
friends, and indeed it is to Mr. Agar's reminis- 
cences — some of which we shall quote verbatim — 
that we are indebted for much of the material 
which we have worked up in this compilation. 
Of course our old Directories and other early 
publications have also been laid under contri- 
bution ; but they could afford at best but a bare 
skeleton sketch, while the fiesh and blood to clothe 
it, could only come from the brother planter 
who held from 1853 an unbroken friendship 
with John Lewis Gordon till the day of the 
latter's death in 1902. In the early "Fifties," 
the Pussellawa and Ramboda districts were not fullv 
opened, but presented a magnificent show of vigo 
ous cofiee fields framed by the everlasting fores 
A more delightful climate, or more romant 
scenery, did not, at the time, exist in Ceylon ; whi 
the facilities for sport — that is hunting elk wit 
dogs, the popular form of sport at the time— wei 
unequalled with the far-extending forests of tl 
Pedro and False Pedro, and Great Western range 
and the interminable Wilderness forest of the Peal 
available on the other side. Pussellawa and Eau 
boda were very favourite residential districts. Gener 
Fraser (' ' Cheetah ' ' Fraser as the Kandyans term( 
him because of his severity in 1818), who did i 
much as Deputy Quartermaster-General with h 
Assistant, then Lieut. Skinner, to map and road tl 
island, resided in patriarchal fashion with his tami 
at Eangboda. (One daughter afterwards marrit 
Capt. David Stewart of the Ceylon Rifles, and a secor 
the Rev. W. F. Kelly, Chaplain). General Frase 
by the way, took John Falconer as his Superinte] 
dent when the latter left Wavendon. John Lew 
Gordon was quickly recognised as a choice spirit 1 
his neighbours, among whom were John Lyon Fras 
on his own property of Tavalamtenne, Geo. Sher: 
so long identified with Helbodde, Jack Tyndall c 
Glenloch, the Worms on Rothschild, and tl 
Sabonadieres on Delta, A. Y. Adams in Maturat 
Walter Ross Duff in Kotmalie, and such famoi 
hunters or jolly companions as the Pallisers, M. 
Lellans, Corbet, Wm. Rose, Hood and Huntc 
Donald Steward, Dr. yhipton, G. and E. Franc: 
and many more, whose names were as " familiar 
household words" in those bright young days of t' 
Colony, when there was no more enjoyable 
gentlemanly occupation on the face of ihe ear 
than that of a Ceylon coffee planter in such grand 
districts for climate and crops, and sport, as lay 
between Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. Mr. Gordon 
thoroughly CBjoyed himself while doing good work 
as planter, in gathering, curiiag, and despatching 
many crops and opening new land, well backed by 
his Assistant, Mr. W. Agar, from 1853 till 1856. 
Mr. Gordon more than most meu might illutrate 
by his equable, though persevering frame of 
mind as a coffee planter, such lines as these : — 
And I mast work thro' months of toil, 
And years of caltivation, 
Upon my proper patch of soil, 
To grow my own plantation : 
I'll take the showers as they fall, 
I will not vex my bosom ; 
Enough if at the end of all 
My Coffee Garden blossom. 
In 1856 a great event occurred ; for the ' ' Periya 
Durai " got married and Wavendon household had to 
ba rearranged. Mr. Agar, giving uphis residence with 
Mr. Gordon, went to reside for a few months 
with Mr. Lyon Fraser, and then on 1st January, 
Ifi.fi?. he took charffe of Hanasralla Estate, now a 
amusing story from an old resident still with us. 
Mr, J. N. Grant, who was in the early "Sixties," 
Superintendent of New Ooodoowella, Mr. W. D. 
Gibbon being Manager of Old Oodoowella. There 
was a " short cut" from the other side of the hill 
through Mr. Grant's coffee which much annoyed 
the V. A., Mr. Sangster Martin, and he gave the 
Superintendent strict orders that no one was to 
be allowed to pass through that way. A few days 
after. Grant spied one of the tallest and handsomest 
