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mine holes. Hill sites are unsuitable, there are usually ravines at 
t the foot of the hills and in any case coolies don’t like hill tops, they 
are too cold for them. 
The boundaries of an estate should be given a wide berth for 
whether your neighbours are the Government, another estate or 
native holdings yon cannot control their actions, all your sanitary 
measures may be in vain by reason of the omission of your 
neighbours to adopt suitable precautions. 
It is not possible to state at what distance from ravines or 
swamps it is safe to house your labourers, we do not know what is 
the diameter of the magic circle the centre of which the anoplieline 
will fail to reach, but it is certain that the further your lines are 
from their breeding grounds the less trouble will you get from 
malarial fevers. 
The management of an estate situated anywhere in broken 
hilly country will be amply rewarded in the future for any amount 
of trouble, taken in the earliest stages of development, to find a 
spacious and flat area of land and to reserve it as a line site. The 
disregard of this measure of prudence is common, it has been and 
will continue to be a source of serious embarrassment and expense, 
there are comparatively few estates the labour forces of which are 
housed upon the best available site on the property. 
A good deal of emphasis has been laid upon this matter of the 
choice of sites for lines on account of the extremely important 
bearing that it has upon the health of labourers and further for the 
reason that, the immediate outlay entailed by the abandonment of 
lines which have been put up on an ill chosen site and the erection 
of new lines upon a fresh site which is generally under well grown 
rubber is rarely faced. Estates go on year after year expending 
money upon attempts to improve the sanitary surroundings of 
their lines, all of which expense might have been avoided by the 
exercise of foresight in the early days of development. 
Cooly Lines. 
Of the three common types of lines in use the plan to be 
adopted is not generally of great importance. On those estates 
where the level of the subsoil water is very high, raised lines are to 
be preferred, this type admits of cooking operations under the lines 
and the smoke from the wood fires has some deterrent effect upon 
mosquitoes, coolies have been known to complain of the cold in these 
raised lines, another complaint is that the height of the steps or 
verandah is a danger to their children, a more common and real 
disadvantage is the difficulty that there is to ensure that the space 
under the lines is kept clear of obstructions and in a reasonable 
sanitary condition, coolies will board up the space for the purpose of 
keeping their cattle, goats or fowls and constant supervision is 
required to prevent it. 
)3 j &7 
