NATIVE INTERESTS. 
rcumded him on all sides. They, however, offered no 
violence, ^ but talked and bewailed and lamented as 
'«)nly natives can do. They would not go away, but 
nSuiTOunded his tent, after it was pitched. The next 
morning he commenced wieh theodolite and chain, 
but the natives stood in front of the former, and threw 
themselves down on the ground before the course of 
the latter, saying: “Pass over our bodies, our dead 
bodies, before you measure and sell the hunting-grounds 
of our forefathers.” So, without any actual violence 
being used, the work was stopped, and the surveyor 
liad to depart and report the state of affairs at head 
cpiarters. Does this feeling on the part of the Sin- 
halese still exist ? I think not. They have been 
brought to see, and be aware, that the proximity of 
the white man, instead of being antagouistic, is quite 
the reverse, and that where the European fells forest, 
plants coffee, and flourishes, so also in some way or 
ways will they also^ flourish. I think they have been 
brought to see that the money and general prosperity 
brought in and caused by a settlement of planters is 
of much more permanent advantage to the native 
interests than the preservation of large tracts of forest, 
merely for the purpose of hunting down elk, deer, &c., 
for the sake of the dried flesh, or for the benefit of 
honey, the result of the labours of the bee hunter. 
Of course whei-e the native interests have benefited 
so largely from the influx of European enterprise, it is 
to be expected that some small counteracting evils, 
or rather inconveniences, will also exist. For it is 
^juite true, the natives have a difficulty in procuring 
timber for their building and fencing purposes, that 
their cattle cannot be allowed to roam about untended, 
or they will trespass on the coffee estates, which they often 
do, and then be caught, tied up, and owners made to 
pay a fine, or damages, before the animals are released. 
But what are these but small drawbacks and petty 
troubles, as compared with other advantages realized ? 
In my own opinion, one of the greatest evils natives are 
subjected to, in the vicinity of coffee estates, is one 
whichIhaAm never heard them state, although, no doubt, 
they are quite aware of it, and that is, the pollution of 
water by coffee pulp. As the native lands and villages 
are ahvays in hollows and A^alleys, below the level of 
estates on the mountain ranges, they are liable to have 
their water not only all polluted but even eliminated 
and diverted and turned off from its original source. Of 
course, this has reference to watercourses diverting 
streams from their course, in order to supply power to 
the planter’s machinery, or to wash his coffee. Thus 
water, ux^on Avhich the native sets so much store, for the 
