ONE PROPER SERVANT.” 
No signs at all that anything usual had happened. 
But, as Periya Karuppen was not a professional or 
trained servant, only a cooly taken from the lines, 
we will now give a brief description of his successor, 
who was a Sinhalese young m ai, named Pieris, and 
who, to our various inquiries, on engaging Into, 
briefly replied, “He was one propei* servant, and quite 
different from other people. ” On expressing a hope that 
his ability in cooking was different from our last serv- 
ant’s, and wish to know what he could do in that, line he 
said he eould cook anything, everything — steak, curry 
and rice, and plantain fritters. We afterwards found 
out these three dishes were his own idea of ev Ty- 
thing. The curry and rice was very good and, so were 
the plantain fritters, but the same could not be said 
of the beef-steak. He would slice th^ beef up into 
pieces about a quarter of an inch in thickness, then 
lay them down on the kitchen table, and with a 
heavy mallet of wood, commence to beat and hammer 
at it until it was all bruised and smashed ; this w^as to 
make it soft and tender, while this beating of the beef 
was going on it served as a very good intimation of 
about what time dinner might be ready, indeed it was 
heard at a great distance off, and often when out with 
our gun, along the jungle edge, looking out for Jungle- 
fowl coming out to feed in the coffee, liave we been 
reminded of tbe approach of our own feeding time, by 
the warning sound of the smashing of the beef -steak, 
which was just as good, and answ'ered the same pur- 
pose, as a, warning bell, a quarter of an hour before 
dinner. 
After the beef was well beaten, it w-as put into a 
fryingpan and fried until it was quite bard, with a little 
lard ; as this was seldom on hand, the more common 
material in use would be coconut oil. Our readers will 
not require any further information, they will be quite 
prepared to understand that the beef -steak resembled 
more a cinder seaked in coconut oil than what it was 
called, and we have even yet quite a distinct recollection 
of never attempting to masticate the steak it was just 
cut or torn into small pieces, a few chips made, in it 
with the knife— and bolted, the only taste it h id was 
of coconut oil. The beef-steak would probably be left 
untouched, and dinner made off the curry and rice, and. 
fried plantains. But what matter, it would appear f>)r 
breakfast next morning under a different asp ^ct. 
It would be chopped up into mineed collops, with- 
out either taste or flavour of meat, and had it not 
been for tbe abundance of pepper and other spices 
with which it was flavoured, we might just as well 
^ave eaten a dish of heated sa vdust ! Indeed for 
1-1 we knew to the contrary it was quite possible that 
