I^XPEHIENCES OF MR. STALE. 
the holes, and then on the top of this spread a 
(jovering of earth, say two or three inches thick. It 
looked all right now, but wait until those sticks 
and roots got rotten.. Why, the bungalow^ was better 
fortified than ever ! for it was surrounded on every 
side by a line of ‘-man-traps” ! — and very probably 
the first victim would be master himself ! ! 
He would be late for muster, or late out in the 
evening, and instead of keeping on the beaten pathway 
would cut it short on a short cut, and cross an ap- 
parently smooth level piece of grouird. But the roots 
and sticks in the mud holes underneath were all rotten ; 
down one foot would go over the knee, and, on making" 
frantic exertions with the other, down also it would 
go up to the thigh. Never mind, the hands are still 
disengaged ; so, spreading out the anns and resting the 
hands on the ground in order to obtain a purchase 
so as to raise the legs, down also go the hands and 
arms up to the armpits, regularly caught in your 
own mantrap, and nothing for it but to call out for 
the boy and kitchen cooly to come and help you out. 
What if they have gone to “ the lines ?” No ; for a 
wonder, they are there when wanted. Rushing out of 
the kitchen — “ Coining sar” — they raise him tenderly up, 
^ ‘Master, our master, is he hurt ?” “ No, not hurt, only 
very angry.” A war is now waged against the “man- 
traps,;” coolies are ordered up to clear out all the 
sticks, roots, and rubbish with which they had 
been filled ; they collect stones, small and great, in 
baskets, and with these fill up the holes, which ara 
then covered oyer with a few inches of earth, and all 
is forgotten. After the lapse of some time he sees one 
of his neighbours with a fine vegetable garden ; seeds 
had been procured from England, and there were 
cabbages, greens, turnips, and even peas ; be would 
have a garden also — why not? So coolies are put on 
to trench up the ground round the. bungalow, but they 
turn up nothing '•but a lot of stones and roots, and 
he remembers the cheap way in which the mud holes 
were filled up. Another cheap way was to rake into 
the holes with a mamoty all the top soil around the 
bungalow, so that afterwards any attempts at floral or 
vegetable cultivation were complete failures ; there was, 
soil, only the hard nnderground gravel left — nothing 
wowld gro.w, even common hardy shrubs were a failure, 
so that the surroundings of a bungalow presented a 
very melai^choly and forlorn aspect, the only appearance 
in the shape of flowers being immense quantities of 
waste papers, and, of shrubs, the sticks and stumps of 
old coir besoms ! But what is that just at the end 
of the kitchen ? Is it a glass-house ? It certainly is, 
^ pile pf glass something; what can it be? “ Welk 
