On the Indian Hills

WHEN the weather grew drier, we turned our attention in a new direction, and pegging, lining, and pitting (all very important operations in the coffee planter's list) took up the chief part of our time. The first is an extremely tedious operation, and one which the new hand will find very difficult in thick jungle. It consists in marking out the exact spots where every coffee bush is to stand on a plot of woodland which has been only slightly cleared, and has been traced out by the trees, on what will eventually be the margin, having been notched, or the leaves and rubbish scraped away. Supposing the space thus enclosed is ten acres in extent, and putting the coffee at six feet apart in each direction, there will be room for about twenty-two thousand plants; and as the position of each has to be accurately noted with a peg stuck into the ground, the labor can be imagined. The necessary number of pegs having been split some time before and piled in heaps along the future clearing, the planter goes to work with his men, and the first thing to be done is to strike a base line right across the ground. To do this, a "level" mounted on a pointed staff, and two men with other staffs painted red and white, are needed, besides trustworthy coolies, who have hold of the opposite ends of a long fifty-foot rope, divided into six-foot lengths by tags of tape or colored rag, as well as numerous attendants with armfuls of pegs to mark the site of the holes to be dug. The Englishman then, starting from the edge of the future belt, directs the two line coolies to hold the rope taut in the direction which the instrument tells him is straight for the opposite side of the marked-out space, and as soon as this is satisfactorily accomplished the coolies stick in pegs directly under each six-foot mark. Then the line is taken forward again to the last peg, and another set measured off. This is all very well when the ground is clear and there are nothing but big trees to obstruct the view -- a sure sign that the soil is good for coffee -- but occasionally there are clumps of bamboo, thickets of thorny bushes, or, worst of all, deep nullahs; and these offer immense obstacles, not so much to the first or base line as to the subsequent ones, and if the planter's temper is at all quick, here is the work which will try it to the utmost. My companion, who was rather uncertain in that respect, gave himself several attacks of fever in trying to set the base lines out properly in the new clearings, and used to make it lively for the poor coolies, who were really not to be blamed, and had to get through places with bare legs which we ourselves did not much fancy, though heavily booted and clothed.

We came to one place, while working together, where the rocks, cropping up close to the surface, left not enough soil to support many large trees, though there was a dense patch of thicket upon it, the growth of centuries, all matted together into a wild tangle. It may perhaps be thought that it was useless to "peg" out such a place, as it could never be planted; but the truth is, every bit of a clearing must be measured off in order that the proportion between the succeeding lines shall be ascertained, and so a way had to be made through the thorny labyrinth at all costs. The billmen dived in, and by vigorous exertions cut out a sort of large rabbit-run; but when they were in the center, it was not possible to keep them straight, and three or four times they diverged to the right or left, and their hard-won drives had to be abandoned. At last I called out for D--- and the compass, and he crawled in on hands and knees, making remarks about the thorns, at every yard, more noticeable for their emphasis than grace, and then we progressed better. Before we got through the thicket, D--- at one place was on his knees, bending over the instrument, and I close behind, when I saw a long grey snake, which I recognized at once as the broad-headed and very deadly tic-polonga -- the worst reptile in these jungles -- hanging down from a bush, with its ugly jaws within a short distance of the back of my companion's neck. He did not notice it, and the probabilities were it would strike him directly he made a move; so, taking a stick from a coolie, I crawled up, and, getting within striking distance, made a blow which killed the snake, and considerably astonished D---, who, however, expressed his gratitude very handsomely, considering his frame of mind, when he saw his dead enemy.