MEASURING COFFEE, 
have half enough,” and he thoughtfully retraced his 
steps to the bungalow, 
lie slept over the difficulty. At morning muste 
ten good stout men were told of at once to proceed 
to Gampola, with a letter to some of the chetties for 
bags, failing which they bad another letter to a friend 
in Kandy, to which they were to proceed, for no 
^ doubt the bags would be got there. They received 
in cash one shilling each for current expenses, and 
were promised an extra shilling each, provided they 
retur-o-ed within a certain period j it was a good spree 
for the coolies, and off they went with a will. 
In the meantime, the old bags recovered in the 
raid on the lines were being sewed up and coffee 
measured into them. A curious appearance they bad? 
black, white and brown patches all over, darnings 
with twine, so that li^tle at all of original bag was left. 
The cartmen came and stood by, while the coffee 
was being measured, shrugged their shoulders, and 
said it would turn out very short. Probably it would 
turn out very short, whatever way it was measured, 
[Being once plagued by a batch of cartmen refusing 
to take coffee, on the plea that the bushel was too 
close cut, by way of expei iment I allowed a double 
handful of coffee, extra, to each bag. That is, after 
the bushel was cut, an extra handful was put in, A 
note was made of this, and to my astonishment this 
turned out the shortest delivery in Colombo of any 
despatch however closely cut! The reason of this 
appeared to be, that the cartmen presumed on this 
extra allowance, and took too much: or rather the more 
you allowed them the more they purloined; however, 
there wej’e exceptions, as I have known carters 
deliver in Colombo more coffee than what they received 
on the estate, but possibly they had not taken full 
advantage of the liberal estate measurement: in fact, 
had not stolen enough !] 
After the lapse of five or six days, during the 
whole of which period Mr. Brown was in hot water the 
carters were constantly in front of his bungalow walking 
out after him, standing, and otherwise tormenting him. 
The whole despatch of coffee was loaded, but still 
Mr. Brown’s troubles were not over. The Colombo 
way-bill stated that £10 in cash, on account of hire, 
was to be paid the cartmen, on the estate, and there 
were not 10 coppers in the bungalow. Having fully 
explained this difficulty to the cartmen, they retired 
under the shade of an adjacent tree, and had a con- 
fabulation for some minutes ; they then returned, 
and said they would take a cheque on the bank in 
Kandy: there was only one bank then. Mr. Brown 
as startled : the idea of any one supposing that he 
