( 149 ) 
a flourishing business, and special emissaries 
of Colombo Firms had their stores for the 
purchase and storage of Cotlee, by a system 
of advances against crop which brought 
even distant villagers into touch with large 
exporters. It also led to much litigation ; 
and the Kandy Courts during crop time 
bristled with .ipplications for Writs of Seques- 
tration and Injunctions, and other legal 
devices for securing advances and preventing 
the alienation, under the incitement of better 
prices, of crops already sold or mortgaged. 
The Ceyhm Merchant and Planter then looked 
down rather contemptuously on Tea ; and the 
files of the Observer and '■ Times " of those 
years testify to the benevolent, but happily 
unsuccessful, zeal with which the Editors 
sought to convert a Tea-drinking world to 
the superior cnarms ana sustenance of Coftee 
—barring its grounds ! Not a few of the 
giant apostles of old have lived to recant 
the old creed, but despite their volte face, 
the Lawyers remain true to their olJ love. 
AVhatever the merits of the cup that does 
not inebriate, it is not to be compared to 
the darker brew in the cheer that it brought 
to the legal mind (and pocket), in disputed 
leasesand mortgages, advances againsccrop and 
short deliveries, cash credits and colfee-stealing. 
The opening of the Main Line to Kandy 
had not yet diverted almost ail the com- 
mercial and banking business to Colombo ; 
the ancient house of Keir, Dundas & Co. 
was yet alive in Harrison and Leake ; George 
Wall & Co, had a Kandy branch managed 
by John MunLon ; the Ceylon Company, Ltd. 
(now the Eastern Produce Estates Co.) was 
represented by William liollo ; Sandy 
Brown struggled against adversity in a 
tottering two-storied house in Trincomalee 
Street; Lee, Hedges & Co. were represented 
in the same quarter by low-voiced Gibbs ; 
William Proctor, now silent in the grave, 
was fluent in speech and bustled about 
town, though marked by an insidious disease ; 
Russell Grant, in his more leisurely stride, 
was not less keen in busiuess ; Joseph 
Holloway and George Edley did a roaring 
trade in Native Coffee for Colombo principals ; 
and d'Esterre'a was the Whiteley of the 
day, and combined banking and trading 
with conspicuous keenness and success. 
It was in those days that dark, burly 
Dawson was a commanding figure and an 
influential personality in Kandy, holding the 
purse-strings of the O. B. C. in the finely- 
situated upstair building facing the Lake 
at the junction of Ward Street with the 
Victoria Drive as it is now called. The 
building has now been absorbed into the 
Queen's Hotel, after having served as the 
Club for some time; but then it was one 
of the finest residences in Kandy, the front 
of the upper story bright and fragrant 
with flowers, while the ground floor jungled 
with rupees as crowds pressed in and out 
from 10 a.m. to almost i p. m. And Duff 
Dawson had the reputation of being one 
of the shrewdest of the O. B. C. staff, 
his serious face and beetling brows relaxing 
into a genial smile, only when he found the 
business to be put through safe. His cheery 
little sister, as ditfereut from him in stature. 
in colour and in looks, as two members of 
a family could be, kept house for him, and 
helped him to dispense the lavish hospitality 
which Bankers were then noted for. 
Dawson loved hisMareschal Neil as fondly as 
Chamberlain does his Orchids, and it was 
seldom that the yellow button hole was not 
conspicuous in his clockwork evening drives, 
and especially at Mattins at St. Paul's. 
But there w.is a fussy old Colonist in Kandy 
whom he did not love ; and it was brought 
home to me in a curious way. Dawson was 
leaving the Island for good, his belongings 
(including flowersj were advertised for sale, 
and a day or two before the auction, I had 
a note to call over. Would I like any cut- 
tings—roses &c., (I, too, sported a button- 
hole pretty regularly in those days !) from the 
heavy bowers at the back of the house? I 
had most of the varieties. "But here is this 
pot ; it is not to be sold. I mean it for you. 
It is the only plant in Kandy. They have 
got only one at the Peradeniya Gardens." 
It was a Madame Assa, then very rare. 
And as I thankfully accepted it, and it 
dawned on me why I was chosen for this 
special favour. I laughed and though he said 
nothing he joined in the laugh. He felt 
sure "the Count" would get no slip out of 
that plant from me ! Else, I fancy, the rose 
would have been sold, or would have gone 
to Judge Lawrie who was intimate with the 
Dawsons. "J. D. D." has followed his uncle, 
G. Srayttan Duff, within a short time, though 
probably twenty years divided them. Peace 
to his ashes! 
DISCOVERY OF AN OLD DUTCH TOMB- 
SIONE IN GALLE. 
In Vol. II Cei/lon Literary Register p 116 re- 
ference is made to an old tombstone as follows ; — 
" Galle. An Old Dutch tombstone has recently 
beau discovered in Pedlar Street bearing date 1673. 
Herenthals is a town in the Province of Antwerp, 
Belsiura. The Coat-of-Arms at the head of the 
sjription is a very elaborate one : — 
Coat-of-Aims 
IIiER Rust Johanna. Maria Bax Gen. V. 
Herental Sterf. 28 Aug. 1673 Ouavt 10 
Maanen en 5 Dagen. 
Here rests Johanna Maria Bax, born at Heren- 
thals died on the 28 Aug. 1073, aged 10 months 
and 5 days." His tombstone afterwards dis- 
appeared but was discovered a few days ago built 
into a drain close to the stair case leading to the 
District Court, Those to whom the care of the 
public drains of the Galle Fort were formerly 
entrusted seem to have had a playful way of cover- 
ing these drains with old tombstones, for many 
such stones have been, from time to time, Hshed 
out from such places. That the tombstone of the 
infant daughter of Major J'o/ia?i Bax, afterwards 
Governor of the Cape, should have been used as a 
cover to a public sewer will no doubt be pleasant 
news to the members of the Bax family of which 
there were various branches viz., Sa.r raji Hercn- 
thai, Bax van Ors7)ialeii, Bax de Hertoge. " Born 
in Herenthal " should of course be "called of 
Herenfchal" because Johanna ilaria Bax waa 
