Every Day Life on a Ceylon Cocoa Estate by Mary E. Steuart

JANUARY 19th. - Yesterday a message came from the Lines to say that a poor woman was very ill of fever. Rob asked whether she would like to have a doctor or to go to the hospital at Teldeniya five miles off. "To the Hospital," was the reply, so a cart was ordered, and in the course of my morning walk I met the procession under weigh. I saw nothing of the invalid but a limp mass of cloth lying on the floor of the bullock cart which had on its top a light wooden framework covered with layers of plaited cocoanut leaves, which makes a capital protection from both sun and rain. Near the cart walked a man, presumably her husband, and he and the bullock driver kept up a kind of melancholy chant as long as I was within hearing. On getting to Teldeniya the doctor pronounced the illness to be pneumonia, a disease both very common and very fatal to coolies in Ceylon. They seem to have no stamina to stand against it, and a few hours often sees them dead. This woman utterly declined to stay in hospital, and came home again in spite of the long drive, so we are anxious about the result. Last week the head kangany had an attack of pneumonia, we found him (in spite of feeling desperately ill) rolled up in his blanket in a corner of the cocoa store. My son asked him what he meant by running such a risk and not taking care of himself.

"But I must do my work, and see that everything is going all right," he replied. However, Rob ordered another man to carry him off to to his home, and before many hours had passed he was in high fever and delirium. If it had not been for Rob and the Appu attending to him themselves, applying mustard poultices, and so forth, whilst waiting for the doctor's arrival, he could not have recovered.