A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 151, 26 June 1907, Page 6

A BUSHMAN AFLOAT.

(COPYRIGHT RESERVED.)

(By ALBERT DORRINGTON, Author of " Along the Castlereagh," " Childi-en of the Gully," etc., etc.) IX.

MY FIRST ELEPHANT.

From all parts oi the estate complaints ; are heard concerning the midnight elephant. Fences and pallisades are rent ! asunder; tea trees and rubber saplings trampled underfoot as the unwieldy rogues wander from field to field. The price of 100 rupees is on the head of one plantation wrecker that if.as terrorised the district and eluded the sporting guns of the travelling Englishmen.

Jackals, red deer, leopards, and monkeys inhabit the mountain slopes, often venturing within the rest-houses and bungalow enclosures.

Yesterday we started out in company with a gang of coolies and crossed the spoor oi an elephant and calf. We followed it through the tea, past broken pallisades, into a neighbouring plantation. Young trees had been uprooted and fiun™ far and near, as though mother and baby thoroughly enjoyed wrecking newly planted rubber trees. The rubber coolies had fled in panic to their lines, bringing out all the available dog population to guard the front and rear entrances. An old white-whiskered Tamil stood near a crowd of babies, and threatened to annihilate any number of elephants that broke through the lines. Turning across the hillside, we heard a furious barking of dogs beyond the boulder strewn gully. The panting coolies pointed to a huge drab-coloured back stalking through the long lemon grass. In the rear tramped the baby elephant, uprooting tea plants and squealing mischievously. A couple of rough Scotch terriers ran behind the marauders, barking and snapping, as they tried to head the beasts back to the village. A pot shot from an old 12-bore Mannlieher cut through a para tree above the great flapping ears. Next moment mother and baby disappeared over the jungleclad ridge on our right. '■ No good to follow in there! " shouted the head kangani. " One dam leopard always follow baby elephant. Jackal come out. No good to go in there, sinna dorai." The sinna dorai did not pursue the mother elephant further; his capacity for avoiding mother elephants amounted to absolute genius. He returned to the bungalow, end explained to the superintendent that in Australia we do not assault ar. elephant with 12-bore Mannlicher rifles; we prefer to destroy them with rabbit poison. PLANTATION BUNGALOWS. Near Dambateeca tea estate we sighted an old Boer encamped among the hills—a grey, wind-stricken place, where several thousand Dutch pioneers were encamped during the war. The rain beats through the broken windows, and at night troops of monkeys chatter over the deserted hearths, where the sullen burghers used •fea'sit salting "« the order gf release.

Many of the yonng Boers, while in Ceylon, obtained permission to prospect for gold in the .urrounding hills. Some declared that the country resembled the Witterwalden district, and hopes were held out that good gold would be found in the near gullies and ridges. After six months' prospecting only a few species were found, and the best specimens obtained only panned out a few pennyweights to the ton. The Ceylon hill bungalow is far more comfortable than the average hotel. They are inhabited mostly by unmarried tea estate superintendents. To every white overseer are allotted three or four Tamil servants, a first-class cook, and kitchen coolie. The superintendent receives from six to eight hundred pounds a rear. He is usually unmarried, and his "life is spent among the dark people who swarm over the estate.

The tea companies of Ceylon are not anxious to engage married men. The climate of the low countries rarely agrees with ■ he white woman, and the more healthy hill estates are terribly lonely places, shut in by jungle and bad mountain roads. The prospect does not app-ral to women of taste and refinement, especially Englishwomen. It goes without saying that the cheap Tamil labourer is often a quarrelsome fellow with a yellow eye. Murders among themselves are frequent Only the other day the manager of a big tea estate interposed between a couple of road-makers, fighting knife and sword among the boulders. The Tamil with the kuife received four inches of sword blade in the throat before matters were settled.

Dambateena estate has 1200 acres under cultivation, and runs one coolie to the acre. Tea could not be profitbaly grown in Australia, although soil and" climate are in many places suitable fcr its cultivation. The trees have to be constantly pruned and manured. Ten pounds' worth of tea is considered a good annual yield for an acre of land, and very few white, men or women could successfully treat and cultivate three acres of tea per annum.

From twenty to thirty cents is considered a fair day's wages for a coolie labourer. Woniten receive twenty, children ten to fifteen.

Ceylon planters agree that the Tamil is the finest coloured labourer in the world. He is imported from Southern India, and improves wonderfully under the beneficial influence of the Ceylon hill climate.

Third day at Dambateena I witnessed the pnishment meted out to a girl " bolter." She had run away to an estate thirty miles distant, and had been promptly returned by the white manager in charge. The kangani, or head man, assembled all the Dambateena coolies in front of th* factory, and called to the girl to stand forward.

Stepping from the coolie ranks, she eyed him coldly, head thrown back, her hands gripped at her sides. 'Why you run away from your father and mother. Imalia?" thundered the kangani. '"Why do you run from the estate?"

Silence from the girl. The kangani shrugged his shoulders, and ejected a stream of betel juice from his mouth. "I shall now send for the police, Imalia," he went on. "The police with the buttons and the big handcuffs."

"Do not send for the police, Ahswala." Shq glanced at him, with a, sadstea fe«

in her eyes. "Beat mc here before my peoplp."

"Beat her. Abswala!" shouted the mother of the girl from the coolie ranks.

"Beat her until she lies at your feet. She is no honour to mc."

The kangani's ej-es gleamed tenderly. 'T will beat her," he said softly. 'T will beat her well with both hands." Snatching up a thick cane, he leaped forward, striking her hard between the neck and shoulders.

She crouched forward as the cane cut her again and again, but made no cry or appeal for mercy.

"Kill her, Abswala!" screamed her mother. "Lay her at your feet; she is no honour to mc."

'T will not kill her," answered the headman, cutting at her fiercely. '3ut I must teach her that she is a dog, and that the estate is her father."

At a sign from the superintendent, the punishment ceased, and the girl crawled back to her work without a murmur.

"These bolters are a great nuisance," said the superintendent afterwards.

"Very often a crowd of coolies will leave in the night, seeking employment on some distant estate. In many cases the managers notify us at once, but there are times when estates, hardpressed for labour, refuse to give up the bolters, and we lose our men."

This morning a Tamil boy was brought in from the hills bleeding profusely from the shoulder and ribs. While passing towards the wire shoot he had come face to face with a full-grown leopard. In a flash the brute had seized him by the shoulders, and proceeded to worry him like a dog. Fortunately a crowd of tree-fellers were on the spot, and the man-eating leopard was hunted back to the jungle.

A reward of 50 rupees has been offered by the Government for its skin.

One does not easily forget the first night spent in a hill bungalow. About S o'clock we heard a terrible scuffling on the verandah outside.

Then came sharp screams, accompanied by furious thumping sounds, as though a hundred cats were steeplechasing over the rails.

Peering cautiously into the darkness. we saw about a dozen blaekfaced monkeys scrambling over the trellis work. Below, a small fox terrier yapped frantically, trying to head off another troop of long-tailed marauders that were jabbering at the kitchen window after scraps of bread and fruit. Later we were aroused by the mournful barking of an elk as it passed down ihe valley, almost within 50 yards of the bungalow.

The marriage customs of the Tamils are intricate, and often baffle the understanding of the white man. At Dambateena recently the motherless son of a coolie, an infant of three years, was married to a woman of 25. This arrangement freed the father from all future anxiety concerning the child's upbringing, it being the duty of the woman to act as nurse and guardian to her young husband.

DISHONEST CABIN STEWARDS.

Every sea traveller is at the mercy of his cabin attendant. Ladies are usually the easiest victims, and during a long trip the cabin-thief has plenty of time __> sheghexd Shs movements <_| hjs

intended prey. The thief is careful not to rob a passenger under his charge. He prefers, for obvious reasons, to purloin from people far removed from his own round.

It must be admitted that Australian shipping companies are swift to punish all cabin marauders who manage to sneak into their service. But it is almost impossible to deal with the vast ever-changing army of stewards who habitually sail under assumed names and borrowed discharses. One occasionally meets a Cockney rascal who brags of his success as a cabin-thief. The slightest appeal to his criminal vanity will extract the desired information.

"Hi'ru a pore bloke, on the look out for snatches," chuckled an undersized imp recently. "Yer cawn't 'elp makin' a bit when yer lookin' after sick passengers. I nicked a diamond ring lawst trip while the old lydy was comin' out of the bawth-room. The bawth-room's the plice to find rings. Soap an' water eases 'em off the finger, an' they drop on the floor. *

"Yus, I picked up this kooh-i-noor, an' blime it was nearly 'arf a pound weight, big as a glass-stopper, in fact.

"Ten minutes after, when the old lady gave the alarm, the whole ship turned out to look under the bunks an 5 feel down tbe bawth-room pipes for it. '•The doctor's boy comes up to mc point blank. "Hey, Wilkin,' he says'chiei wants yer. Reckon he saw yer pokin' round the bawth-room just now.' "Nice pickle, I sez to myself. If they catch mc with the diamond in mc pocket 111 go to chokee. I ducked below into the stokehole and puts mc little koh-i----noor under a 'cap of coal. Then I tore on deck casu'lly an' faces the chief. "'About that diamond, Wilky,' he sez. 'Stand up straight now, yer eyes are shinin' like a Newgate lamp. Where's the diamond, Wilky?'

'"Diamond,' I sez. 'W*hy, Lord tike mc. I ain't seen nothin' brighter than mc hat since mother died! I 'ope ver don't think I borrowed the old lydy's blinker?' "The mawster-at-arms searched mc, an' then tbe 'cad stoord ran his bi« 'ands over mc leadin' features. 'Wilk = ' he sez; 'tile care of yourself. Some diy you'll fall over the door-mat.'

"'-An' I hope you'll keep yer chin up when the floor hits you,' I sez perlitel-. With that I started en mc cabins an 'cleaned up before inspection. After I'd finished I toddled into the stokehole to warm mc 'ands.

. " 'Eilo, Friday,' says I to one of the firemen. 'Ow would a bit of roast duck g-*> before dinner?'

"I dawnced past him an' looked for mc little 'cap of coal in the corner of the bunker. "Where's the bit o J slack thai was 'ere an hour ago, Friday, says I. •Blime, you ain't been sweepin' up, I 'ope.'

" 'Cleaned up the plates five minutes ago. W T ilk,' says he. 'All the dirt's gone into the fire, mc boy. What about the roast duck?'

"'You blawsted old !' I sez. "I 'ope you'il die face down in quod.' "It was the on'y blessin' I ever chucked away. It's bloomin' 'ard to pray for yer enemy after he's shovelled yer diamond into the fire. If I'd been 'arf a foot bigger I'd 'aye shovelled him in on tog of it. Wouldn't you, eh?"* t J.Tc. be- eontiaueiii