HOW COOLIES BUILD. 
■a, time, on meeting with and transacting business with 
others, we never could get a solid reason for some 
apparently unreasonable proceeding, or course of action, 
some trifling subterfuge, which indeed we would have 
been very green to have swallowed, was offered as a 
tangible or apparent excuse. We thought upon the 
old saying so often drilled into the ears, until at last 
it became as much dreaded an expression as “No 
rice,” “ The lines are bad,” which just meanSj “We 
don’t want to engage with you.” If a gang of coolies 
take a fancy to yourself or estate, you are full-handed, 
with lines well packed, and not wishing to hurt their 
feelings tell them you have “ no lines,” or the “lines 
are bad,” they will soon speedily volunteer to remedy 
this defect. Give them a few (lays ajid they will build 
lines, or will thatch in an open verandah. The corner 
of a cattle shed, the store, or pulping-house, will do 
very well, until something is settled. Being sometimes 
pushed for labor at other works, we have, taken on 
ooolies, on the understanding that they were to build 
their own lines, please themselves and not blame us 
afterwards, they of course receiving pay during any 
reasonable time they took ,at the work. But these 
■eventually proved to be the most expensive buildings 
that could have been erected. The coolies would pro- 
ceed into the jungle, and look out for young trees, 
or branches, where a forking branch sprung out at a pro- 
per distance ; this would be cut down and carried 
away, as a corner post, the fork at the top an- 
swering for the reception of the cross beam or ridge- 
pole, and thus doing away with ' all necessity for 
a carpenter, with his adze and chisel ; four forked 
posts to support the wall-plates, and tw’o for the 
ridge-pole, rafters tied on with jungle rope ; thatch, 
mana grass, which being a far way off and it being 
the month of February, fine clear dry weather, they 
adopted a somewhat novel system of thatching. In 
the adjacent jungles they collected large quantities of 
twigs covered with leaves, chiefly nilu, or any 
branches that were thick in leaf, carried them in bundles 
to the new lines, and thatched them. So long as the 
leaves and twigs remained green this answered very 
well in keeping out the cold, or night dews, but they 
soon curled up and dried with the heat of the sun, 
but when the holes in the roof got very bad they 
were just re-covered with more green stuff. They were 
at last driven out of this habitation when the April 
rains set in, as this sort of roofing is no protection 
against rain. Then we would send for grass to cover 
the roof, under the weight of w*hich the posts and 
rafters would give way, so that we w^ere obliged to 
do what should have been done at first, put up a new 
