UNSUCCESSFUL SPECULATION. 
proprietoi*, and thus is very easily explained what, at 
Urst, seems a strange anomaly. 
Two gentlemen leaped into the pool, into the very 
centi'e of it, with a great dash, which finally ended 
in a smash ! They were going to perform wonders : 
tough beef and stringy mutton were soon to become 
a matter of history. ‘‘ Bass ” and “ Alsopp ” would be 
ruined, for who would drink their decoctions w’hen 
better stuff would be brewed in the Colony at one- 
half or one-fourth the price ? They bought land in 
Nuwara Eliya, and first of all built a ffine and very 
expensive house. What a curious starting that used 
to be in almost every undertaking, however uncertain 
and hazardous, the building of an expensive house I 
One would have thought that this proceeding should 
or vAould have been the last thing gone into, that 
people would have waited until they saw whether or 
not their operations or speculations presented any 
chance of success. Besides, building in those times 
was very expensive ; it sank money, yielding no returns. 
Mow often have I and many others also seen the 
reinaliis of a very fine bungalow standing in a wilder- 
ness of wffds and jungle scrub, wdiich had once been 
coffee. What a melancholy sight, what painful re- 
code lion- it called up, especially if a few years before 
you liapp'iied to have been a guest in it, when the 
hopeful owner w^as in all the pride and zenith of his 
pov^., r. It is my iniention at some future time in 
these writings to devote a chapter to this subject, 
headed “ The Dying Confessions or Bevelations of an 
Old Bungalow.” Toe Eamboda Pass was thronged 
wiih bullock carts laden with, agriculty.ral instruments 
of every demi iption, direct from England ; inside the 
carts Avere pens contain ing English sheep, pigs and 
poultry and all manner of grain seeds in bags and 
stocks. Tue eves of the old planter travelling down 
the Pass wuuld he astonished and gladdened at the 
sight of real English cattle and horses being led up 
the Pass to liie farm, and, in order that the Avhole 
affair migid be completed in slap-up style. English- 
built carriage and English horses were only a reason- 
able jinalc, of course all the establishment could never 
be managed or worked by natives. English men and 
women servants were amongst the attaches. But it is 
110 use going on : all old hands must recollect this 
undertaking, and all new^ ones must have heard of it, 
and all about it. But somehow this dashing specula- 
tion did n’t do, it soon fell through, the stock did n’t 
breed and fatten, and the beer did not take the market, 
people did not drink, or what was more likely drank 
it once and did not do so any more! They actually 
