A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8459, 8 June 1907, Page 7

A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

By ALBERT DORRINGTON. t(Author of "Along the Castlereagh," of the Gully," etc.) j ,

(Published by special arrangement —Copyright reserved.) X. CEYLON. From all parts of the estate complaints are heard concerning the midnight elephant. Fences and pallisades are rent asunder; tea trees and rubber saplings trampled under foot as the unwieldly rogues wander from ■field to field. The price of 100 rupfieu is on the head of one plantatiOTvvrecker, that has terrorised the • district and eluded the sporting guns • of the travelling Englishmen. Jackals, red deer, leopards, and ■monkeys inhabit the mountain slopes, .often venturing within the houses and bungalow enclosures. Yesterday we started out in company with a gang of coolies and crossed the spoor of an elephant and <calf. We followed it through the tea, past broken pallisades, into a neighbouring plantation. Young trees had been uprooted, and flung far and near as though mother and baby thoroughly enjoyed wrecking newly-planted rubber trees. The rubber coolies had fled in panic to their lines, bringing out all the available dog population to guard the front and rear entrances. An old white-whiskered Tamil stood near a crowd of babies, and threatened to annihilate any number of elephants that broke through the lines. Turning across the hillside, we heard a furious barking cf dogs beyond the boulder-strewn gully. The panting coolies pointed to a huge drab-coloured back stalking through the long lemon grass. In the rear tramped the baby elephant, uprooting tea plants and squealing mischievously. A couple of rough Scotch terriers ran behind the marauders, barking and snapping as they tried to head the beasts back to the village. A pot shot from an old 12-bore Mannlicher cut through a para tree «sove the great flapping ears. Next ■fiioment mother and baby disappeared over the jungle-edged range on our right. "No good to follow in there!" shouted the head kangani. "One dam leopard always follow baby elephant. ' Jackal come out. No good to go in there, sinna clorai!" The sinna dorai did not pursue the mother elephant further; his capatity for avoiding mother elephants amounted to absolute genius. He returned to the bungalow and explained to the superintendent that in Australia we do not assault an elephant with 12-bore Mannlicher rifles. We prefer to destroy them with rabbit poison. Near Dambateena tea estate we sighted an old Boer encamped among the hills, a grey, wind-stricken place, where several thousand Dutch prisoners were encamped during the war. The rain beats through the troken windows, and at night troops f monkeys chatter over the deserted earths, where the sullen burghers u&fl to sit waiting for the order of release. GUSH Many of the young Boers, while in Ceylon, obtained permission to prospect for gold in the surrounding hills. Some declared that the country resembled the Winterwalden district, and hopes were held out that good gold would be found in the near gullies and ridges. After six months' prospecting, only a few specks were found, and the best specimens obtained only paimed out a few pennyweights to the ton. The Ceylon hill bungalow is far more comfortable than the average hotel. They are inhabited mostly by unmarried tea estate superintendents. To every white overseer are allotted three or four Tamil servants, a fii;stclass cook, and ktichen coolie. The superintendent receives from six to eight hundred pounds a year. He is usually unmarried, and his life Jsspent among the dark people who iHhrm over the estate. The tea companies of Ceylon are not anxious to engage married men. The climate of the low countries rarely agrees with the white woman, and the more healthy hill estates are terribly lonely places, shut in by jungle and bad mountain roads. The prospect does not appeal * to women of taste and refinement, especially Englishwomen. It goes without saying that the cheap Tamil labourer if often a quarrelsome fellow with a yellow eye. Murders among themselves are frequent. Only the other day the manager of a big t3a estate interposed between a couple of roadmakers, fighting knife and sword among the boulders. The Tamil with the knife received four inches of sword blade in the throat before matters were settled. Dambateena estate has 1,200 acres under cultivation, and runs one coolie to the acre. Tea could not be profitaly grown in Australia, although soil and climate are in many places suitable for it cultivation. The trees have to be constantly pruned and manured. Ten pounds' worth of tea is considered a good annual yield for an acre of land, and very few white men and women could successfully treat and cultivate three acres of tea •*Ber airum. From 20 to 30 cents is considered • a fair day's wages for a coolie laborrer. Women receive 20, chil•dren 10 to 15. (To be Continued).