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

AUGUST 25th. - Since I last wrote in my Journal, much that was unexpected has happened. In the first place we have been moved from Raneetotem to an Estate some miles nearer Kandy. Rob's lingering malarial attack pointed out only too surely that he had remained already too long in that exhausting climate, so his employers ordered an exchange of billets. In consequence we find ourselves in a charming bungalow in a much better climate, with refreshingly cool mornings and evenings, with near neighbours, bicycling roads, and even a good tennis court. It is rather humiliating to find the effect a good house has on one's sensations. When I sit writing here in my pretty little drawing-room, surrounded by photographs of my dear ones at home, and look across a broad white pillared verandah on to a rose garden in which my old friends, Gloire de Dijon, Triomphe de Rennes, Marshal Niel, Baroness Rothschild, Captain Christy, Fellenberg, and many others flourish, I feel as if I had returned once more to this century, instead of living as at Raneetotem in an environment which constantly reminded one of the times of the patriarchs. However I am glad to have had the experience and to have seen what the daily life of a remote low country Estate is like.

Our move was performed by the help of bullock carts and a curious sight it was to see the process of loading. Three carts stood in a row, each the nucleus of a busy group of coolies; a few yards away lay the six bullocks patiently chewing the cud until they were wanted, and not in the least disturbed by the barking of dogs, the screams of the monkey, the cackle of geese, and the crowing of cocks, as they were each and all caught and deposited in their respective carts. A great difficulty was how to convey three broods of chickens which were really too young to face the shaking and the hot sun; ten of these eventually died, but all the rest of the beasts and birds reached their new home safe and sound.