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

We spent last Saturday and Sunday at P---, Mr. M. and Rob played in a cricket match at Kandy, and the rest of us stayed at home, and indulged in croquet and tennis. It is a delightful house to stay at, for you cannot only count upon a kind and hearty welcome, but can have your choice of amusement from golf to cards, including tennis, croquet, tent pegging, leaping and ball and bucket, and you are sure of finding someone ready to join you in one or all. These little outings send people back to work with fresh zest, and only the most confirmed misanthrope could grudge "the hard worked planter" this little break in his monotonous life.

To-day arose one of the often recurring worries consequent on caste. On this Estate at present we have oniy three low caste coolies; all the others are of such very high caste that they will not work as kitchen coolies, or be horsekeepers, or go to Kandy with our beef-box. On this present occasion, one of these precious three was away on leave, and the two others were ill with fever, so after early tea, the Appu appeared in the sitting-room with a very long face to say, "Please sir, there is no kitchen coolie to-day." However, Rob soon settled the matter by pressing into the service an orphan boy whom he keeps to look after the dogs and poultry. But the more important problem of who is to fetch our supplies tomorrow still remains unsolved. It behoves housekeepers on remote Estates to lay in a stock of tinned provisions in order to provide for emergencies. It is wonderful what appetising dishes can be made from them by the Ceylon cooks; indeed, in the absence of kitchen ranges, and modern utensils, all their cooking is perfectly marvellous. Here we have not even a proper oven; only a fire on the hearth, and a clay oven improvised to cook the Christmas turkey; and yet some of the entrees, and the scones and hot cakes our "boy" sends up would do credit to a pupil of the Kensington School of Cookery. I am so struck dumb with admiration that I feel quite shy of making any culinary suggestions. The native cooks are also artistic in their work: stewed fruit, for example, is sent up covered with a most delicate tracery of white whip; iced cakes are perfect marvels of elegant decoration; cucumber appears with scalloped edges, and mashed potato is often moulded into the form of a fantailed pigeon, or takes the semblance of one huge potato - even the angularities and depressions are copied, and so complete is the deception, that the first time this dish was handed to me I exclaimed (much to the amusement of the company), "Oh what an enormous potato! I think it is the largest I have ever seen." The cooks seem to have a real love of their art. Our "boy" is at this moment revelling in Miss Young's "Domestic Cookery." He can read just enough English to make out the recipes, which are very clearly and simply expressed. He generally manages to carry them out correctly; but one day it was a little perplexing to have "Exeter Stew" sent up with what ought to have been suet balls, made into a pudding paste, whilst inside it reposed the meat made into balls, thus reversing the usual process. We benefit by his experiments, though I much fear that a box of stores, which I have just had up from Colombo, will in consequence come to an end much sooner than I expected.