VEGETABLE SEEDS FOB COOLIES. 
build sties and even feed the pige, and for ihis eventu- 
ally the value of manure obtained will in course of 
rime more than return the expenditure incurred. We 
used always to discourage pigs, and encourage gardens; 
a great help and incit anent to the latter was pro^ 
curing garden seeds. Often, when personally working 
in the bungalow garden, in the cool of the evening, 
with a packet of seeds which had just come out fresh 
from England, would a passing cooly stand and look, 
others would be attracted, until quite a group would 
be collecting at the extreme novelty of m jster working, 
actually doing cooly work ; then they would volunteer 
to do it for us, and persistently hold out the hand 
for a rake or hoe. Sometimes we would humour them 
and sometimes not ; in either case it would generally 
end in a modest requisition for some cabbage seeds, 
which was always granted, or, if they were too re- 
spectful to ask, we could easily guess by the longing 
eye cast upon the packets of seeds what the heart 
<le3ired ; a few packets of seeds would be opened, a 
pinch of several sorts placed into some white paper 
and into the hands of the cooly, and he would de- 
part in high glee, and set to work at once, at the 
lines, to prepare a small garden. The news would 
spread ; next evening the group around our garden 
fence woui 1 be a numerous one, we would be over- 
whelmed v/itli offers of work. We could not get to 
woi’k : our polite coolies would not submit to this 
sort of tiling. “Master working! Chi, chi, we will 
do it,” until at last, after having learnt the store set 
upon seeds, we would order far more than our per- 
s )nal requirements, in order to distribute to them ; 
nor w^ere they ungrateful, for if their seeds grew and 
flourished, which they frequently did, while onrs came 
to nothing, they would present master with the best 
vegetabh'S of their growth. The cooly is not such a 
bad fellow after all, if one knows how and when to 
humour him. Once gain their confidence and respect 
alid it will take a good deal before you lose it, if 
ever. Yes, amongst the numerous classes of labourers 
in this wide world there are many much worse and 
far more difficult to deal with than “Bamaswami.” 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
Coming TO Ceylon on the Chance of Getting What 
One was Worth : If Worth then to Get 
Nothing. 
Mr. James Jimson landed in Ceylon in January, 1845, 
He was sixteen years of age, and by his parents in 
^e old country was consigned to a proprietor, who 
