FUETHER EXPERIENCES OP MR. FRESH, 
moment is comfortably sitting on his hind legs ” m 
a smoky hovel at Madura, enjoying the funds of his 
large advances ? They are opposite the turn up to 
your estate ; they are halting. No ; without stop or stay 
the approach is passed — they are on to some other 
estate. See all this and a great deal more, as the writer 
has seen and experienced ; then, and not till then, can 
you fully appreciate the value of the cooly. 
But let us return to the crossings, which were to 
be done away with in favor of a bridge. The assort- 
ment of sticks collected on the banks of the stream 
at the proposed site having been completed, the work 
was commenced and finished on the same day ! The 
site selected was where the banks on both sides were 
steep and rocky ; these were levelled away, and long 
jungle trees of about the thickness of a man’s leg 
(cooly’s) above the knee placed across close together, 
and the number so placed depended altogether on 
what the breadth of the bridge was intended to be — it 
might be two feet, but seldom exceeded four. After 
they were laid across and fixed in correct position a 
number of small sticks, about as thick as a man’s 
(cooly ’s) wrist were laid across them, close together, 
with perhaps a nail driven in here and there to keep 
them steady, and the framework was up ! Then, on 
the top of the sticks a lot of rough gravel was spread, 
brought up from the bed of the stream, which filled 
up all the open space between the sticks, and again 
on tbe top of this a whole lot of mud and earth was 
spread out, and the bridge was finished. After a time 
the centre way would get hollow, and slightly sunk, 
caused by the action of the feet in walking across, so 
that the rain water stood in pools upon it ; this gra- 
dually created rot on the timber underneath, so that 
after it had been in use for any length of time it was 
hardly safe to walk across it, even although it seemed- 
all right, apparently. But so indifferent were we in 
youthful days to the risks of broken ribs and bruised 
legs, that it was quite a common thing even to ride 
over these bridges. The first sign of the decay of the 
bridge would be a flat stone placed down somewhere 
in its centre : some one on walking across had made 
a hole, which was caused by some of the sticks giving 
way ; he had withdrawn his foot in time to escape 
that occasion, and as a caution to others and a warning 
to himself on his next passage, had placed this fiat 
stone over the hole. But this Avas just the beginning 
of troubles : more holes would break out, more sticks 
would give way, until at last the fine bridge was 
reduced to one solitary rotten tree, infinitely more 
dangerous than the “ doon tree” bridge, because while 
you had a very much narrower space to walk over, you 
