^00 
THE TEOPICAL 
A^GRICULTURIST. [Nov. 2, 1903. 
erratic and often impracticable, William Smith. 
Over the new ridge towards Kandy there lived 
and worked with a will James Martin of Hantane 
estate. A man in every respect, very much after 
the type of Mortimer, so much so, that one portrait 
may serve for both. Steady as a rock, conscientious 
in the performance of all his duties, and careful in 
his own personal expenditure, enabling him to do 
quietly many a generous action, which thriftless 
men of the so-called good-hearted type were utterly 
incapable of. Economy is sometimes jeered at, as if 
it were meanness, while the reverse is often the 
truth. To exercise self-denial and strive for inde- 
pendence is manly, to give way to extravagance is 
contemptible. James Martin was a bred gardener, 
having served under that clever botanist Dallachie 
of Haddo House, who followed his late apprentice 
to Ceylon ; but arriving during the disastrous days 
of 1847-8 he never succeeded in getting employment, 
and soon drifted downward. An exceptionally 
clever man with polished manners, he at once got 
into what was then termed society in Kandy, chiefly 
of the military element ; but when the funds ran 
low, his gold watch in pawn, and he himself arrested 
for debt, it was his old assistant who came forward 
to relieve the watch and pay the passage of his 
whilom master to Australia. Oar friend A. C. 
Mortimer, the minister's man of old, did a similar 
good action for the son of the Manse. 
After sixteen years of steady work James Martin 
was fortunate enough to marry the pretty Miss 
McCombe of Kandy, with whom, and with the 
£9,000 he had saved, he soon after retired to 
enjoy his otiuvi cum dignitate in his native land. 
Dr. Marshall, his fortunate partner in Gocagalla 
estate, having previously retired upon the fruits 
of that profitable venture. Both are now gone, 
but enjoyed many years of pleasant intercourse 
in and around the beautiful Granite City, that 
Mecca of so many Ceylon men. 
Let us now for a moment take a peep at— 
in some important details, a neighbour of a 
very different character. Sandy Gray, so long 
on Ingrogalla, was also a Buchan loon, and Scot 
of the most pronounced type, whose vernacular 
never failed him. An honest, good, planter, kind, 
good-natured and hospitable to a fault. But 
Sandy was improvident, and never thought of 
providing against old age ; his bungalow became the 
rendezvous of thankless loafers, and men out of 
billets, many of whom forgot him when he himself 
came to be in need. Sandy, indeed, discovered when 
too late that the temporary applause of the sponging 
loafer was a poor exchange for destitution in old age. 
Sandy Gray went out to Ceylon in 1840, in the same 
ship that carried Dr. Marshall and James Martin, 
and after 40 year.s' labour died literally penniless. 
He it was, who as spokesman of the party, about to 
be engaged, asked if the £50 a year promised as 
salary was exclusive of " coal and candle licht," 
and at the Kandy hotel he often created amusement 
by calling out to his horsekeepcr " Taurs the fup." 
The Lettees ov A. C- Mortijier. 
After this rapid sketch of his life and surroundings, 
I cannot conclude without giving a few extracts 
from the interesting pile of letters entrusted to me 
for perusal— letters, many of which have been care- 
fully treasured for over half-a-century. Indeed, 
from the day he left home in 18i5 till his last 
voyage in 186(3, he continued to write with praise- 
Worthy regularity, at least once a month, and what 
strikes me first, and chiefly, in perusing these letters, 
is the undying love of the writer for his "ever 
revered motheE"; and secondly, the intense interest 
he took ill his planting work. If asked the secret 
of his undoubted success as a planter, I would say : — 
Loving remembrance of home and delight in his 
estate duties. Another thing that strikes me is 
the wonderful improvement in diction and penman- 
ship as time progresses, which speaks well for the 
educative effects of a life in Ceylon. These letters, 
chiefly addressed to the " much-loved mother," the 
dearest sister, or a darling niece, breathe throughout 
a spirit of simple piety, affectionate attachment, 
and keen interest in all the little details of home 
life. At first, the orthography is rather weak, the 
writing clumsy, and as Carlyle said of Cromwell's 
letters, "the grammar seems hopeless" ; but as I 
have said before many days there appears a marked 
improvement. 
His first letter after leaving home is dated from 
Aberdeen, and addressed to his mother, from whom, 
with many prayers for her welfare, he takes an 
affectionate leave, and writing out a sort of holograph 
will " bequeaths all lie is possessed of (£14) to her. 
This in case of being drowned en-route tor Ceylon." 
This maternal love is very i)leasing to note, though 
it is not often that young Scotsmen are so demon- 
strative in shovving it, and Max 0' Rell in his last 
work "Travels in Woman Land,'' remarks that it is 
' ' a curious characteristic of the British to ignore the 
poor father. It is the mother tongue, the mother 
wit, the mother country, never by any chance, 
" The Father-land." 
London was a tremendous surprise to the young 
man from the Garioch. Such a forest of ships on the 
Thames as he had never dreamed of, and could not 
conceive how the boat from Aberdeen ever found its 
way through. In the metropolis someone took him 
to see what he called " the polotecian" (polytechnic) 
which fairly flabbergasted him, and he confesses he 
is not equal to describing "all the arts and sciences 
of tlie world " which he saw there. On board the 
P. & 0. he was greatly pleased with the ' Bill of 
Pare.' 'Tell mother,' he writes to his brother, 
" that I have everything I could desire here in 
the way of food— soup, beef, pudding, porter and 
spirits all free." But he was not long in discovering 
that the stomach of John Bull was not so easily 
satisfied, or that he had a great propensity for 
grumbling. 
■ On nearing Malta he writes " We are getting rid 
of our English fellow passengers here, and I'm very 
glad. " Nasty fashons bruteswi' their meat"! 
As the voyage proceeded, his descriptive powers 
improved, and on reaching Ceylon we have lengthy 
letters, describing the island as a perfect paradise, 
the beauty and bountifulness of which exceeded all 
his expectations. The work on Baharundrah and 
Reilagalla was a joke to him, compared with the 
toil to which he had been accustomed, and altogether 
life on the Wattle was a daily delight. His salary, 
small as it was, more than satisfied him. " This is 
the country for 'samblam' as the coolies call it " 
he wrote to his bi'other, and from the first he con- 
trived to save a little, mindful of what the wise old 
Quaker says : — It's what thee'U spend, my son not 
what thee'll make, which will decide whether thee's 
to be rich or not." 
At the end of three years he was able to say he 
hadlentG. E. Dalrymple, his employer, £160 @ 12%. 
His letters by this time began to look quite business- 
like, his caligraphy straight and regular, his ortho- 
graphy quite creditable. He now took it upon 
himself to lecture his brothers on their bad writing 
and spelling. Exhorting them to practice, practice, 
adding "for nothing," he says, "broadens out di 
man's mind like writing," 
