FrjJ 3 AY NIGHT. 
not that, ^^e woiiT tell what it was ; it is qui e enough 
to cay, we slept not at all that night, and had to 
get up, and walk up and down the verandah. We 
remembered our own room and bed, with no preten- 
sions at all, but where we could, and did, sleep com- 
fortably, and we began to think seriously, that this 
was a somewhat extraordinary commencement of the 
holiday season ! Holidays indeed, far better be out 
with the coolies all day at home, when some com- 
fort, in a plain rustic way, was to be had, after the 
day’s work was done, but we were on our holiday 
excursion, and were ashamed to go back. During the 
day, we went about with our host, visiting all the 
diferent works, just the same sort of life as at home, 
but only without any iiitei’est in the work ; we soon 
got tired of this, and lounged about the house all 
day, when the host was absent at his work, which 
was a very tiresome way of spending our holidays. 
At last we could stand it no longer, and we went 
away to visit another friend, in another district, where 
just the same sort of way of spending the time was 
gone about. The only really useful and practical 
lesson we picked up on our travels, was, never to 
arrive at a bungalow on Tuesday evening on Wednes- 
(day morning, or on Friday evening, or Saturday 
morning, as, if we did, on these dates, there was no- 
thing to eat but rice and curry, and perhaps even 
not that ; these were the fasting days, and it pro- 
ceeded fro 01 this, that, where beef was killed and bread 
supplied, these and sundry other supplies were issued 
on Wednesday and Saturday mornings, and the coolies 
sent off* for the provender did not arrive till the 
Wednesday and Saturday evenings. 
Thus on these evenings, and the following days, you 
were always sure of, at any rate, a beefsteak. We 
suspect iioihing of this sort of thing exists in the 
present time ? When two fellows get dull on a Friday 
or Tuesday afternoon, after work, and one says to the 
other, “ Slow work this. Let ’s go over and look up 
old Dickens, and dine ” ; we suspect it is never said 
now to the t'eHow who proposes it, “No don’t, we 
will just bother him, and niak® him uncomfortable, 
Friday night, you know. ” Jt has often been said in 
the olden times, and where it was not openly said it 
was felt in the mind. We have even known a hearty 
good fellow of a neighbour, who perhaps had been 
from home a few days, probably to Kandy, and who 
of course had not used up the half of his supply of 
proviiions, and knowing that we would of course be 
upon “short commons,” would write a note, “Come 
®ver and chat,” as the saying was, the purpose of 
