On the Indian Hills

Another sort of obstruction which makes "lining" difficult in unfelled jungle are the deep and rocky watercourses or nullahs. It does not do to stretch the measuring line straight from bank to bank, as that would distort the position of subsequent lines, but it has to accurately follow the fall of the ground, which would be an easy matter with trained English laborers, but with such poor thick-headed natives as ours proved a matter of great difficulty, and took up much time. For my part, I never could understand the necessity of having the lines of coffee plants so exactly even that, from any point in the clearing, one can look up four neat roads only terminated by the belts of forest; but it is the custom, and is rigorously insisted upon in most estates, though probably it consumes more time and money than its few advantages repay.

At this work, with very little intermission or variety to enliven the monotony, the first two weeks of December were passed; and as the weather became hotter in the jungles every day, people at home were doubtless building up larger and larger fires, and making preparations for Christmas festivities. Although the English skies may be dull, and but little of the sun to be seen, yet even on the Indian hills we at this season were not in continual brightness, for the forests were often buried in mists and vapors all day, which made it decidedly cold and uncomfortable; or if the sun did come out, the wet jungle steamed like a damp blanket, and the heat was oppressive and unwholesome. In the morning I found it pleasant to go to work in a wrap of some kind, which was most welcome up to about ten o'clock, then the influence of the sun began to be felt, and the forests had nearly finished steaming for the day. After that hour an umbrella was more suitable in the clearings, or when superintending the work on new roads, etc. But the planter's toil is so varied and rough that he has to take things very much as he finds them, and adapt himself as he may to the most rapid changes, from cold moist shade to the burning glare of the midday sunshine.

Occasionally a little adventure would happen to enliven the sameness of the "work, and give us something to talk about at breakfast. For instance, one morning I was "pegging" in a fifteen-acre clearing on the side of a very steep hill, and had taken up my stand on the broken stump of a tree struck by lightning a few years before, in order to get a better view of some coolies who were working in a nullah below. After staying there some time and "pitching into" the coolies in the liveliest language I could think of, I got down and went higher up the hillside, to see what another gang were doing. It was a fresh morning, and a strong breeze, though we could feel nothing of it below, was obviously blowing up above, we could see, from the way in which the trees were swinging about. Hardly had I gone twenty yards up the hillside when a groan echoed through the aisles of the forest, and the coolies, who seemed to know what it meant, fled right and left. Then there was another and another such sound, and I saw a great tree, a hundred feet high, tottering. I was so close, I could hear the strong fibers in the stem snapping with a sound like pistol-shots, and then came a crack -- the bark parted all round, and slowly the huge tree toppled over, bringing down another that was lashed to it with rattan creepers, and leaving a great gap in the forest roof, through which the sun shone brightly, the giant trunk falling with such a rush and thud to earth as made the ground vibrate. The stump on which I had been standing a few seconds before was cleft into three huge splinters by one of the branches; and all round, for a space of twenty yards, lay a mass of broken timber and leaves, affording us considerable occupation when it became necessary to continue the "pegging."

Besides trifling adventures of this sort, on Sundays we got an occasional chance of visiting our neighbors, as we called them, though the nearest was a long way off. On one occasion, Sunday being bright and fine, all the coolies away at a weekly bazaar at the head of the ghaut, and D--- and Charlie having gone to spend the day with C. H---, of Polyampara, I and L -- made up our minds -- by no means an easy thing after a hard week's work -- to call upon F--- and his wife in their bungalow,