eaned by the table 'mate' and his coolies,
while the washerman stamps on his sheets and press-cloths to extract
all the colour from them, and the cake-house boys run to and fro
between the cutting-table and the cake-house with batches of cakes on
their heads, borne on boards, like a baker taking his hot rolls from
the oven, or like a busy swarm of ants taking the spoil of the granary
to their forest haunt. Everywhere there is a confused jumble of sounds.
The plash of water, the clank of machinery, the creaking of wheels, the
roaring of the furnaces, mingle with the shouts, cries, and yells of
the excited coolies; the vituperations of the drivers as some terrified
or obstinate bullock plunges madly about; the objurgations of the
'mates' as some lazy fellow eases his stroke in the beating vats; the
cracking of whips as the bullocks tear round the circle where the
Persian wheel creaks and rumbles in the damp, dilapidated wheel-house;
the-dripping buckets revolving clumsily on the drum, the arriving and
departing carts; the clang of the anvil, as the blacksmith and his men
hammer away at some huge screw which has been bent; the hurrying crowds
of cartmen and loaders with their burdens of fresh green plant or
dripping refuse;--form such a medley of sights and sounds as I have
never seen equalled in any other industry.

The planter has to be here, there, and everywhere. He sends carts to
this village or to that, according as the crop ripens. Coolies must be
counted and paid daily. The stubble must be ploughed to give the plant
a start for the second growth whenever the weather will admit of it.
Reports have to be sent to the agents and owners. The boiling must be
narrowly watched, as also the beating and the straining. He has a large
staff of native assistants, but if his _mahye_ is to be successful, his
eye must be over all. It is an anxious time, but the constant work is
grateful, and when the produce is good, and everything working
smoothly, it is perhaps the most enjoyable time of the whole year. Is
it nothing to see the crop, on which so much care has been expended,
which you have watched day by day through all the vicissitudes of the
season, through drought, and flood, and blight; is it nothing to see it
safely harvested, and your shelves filling day by day with fine sound
cakes, the representatives of wealth, that will fill your pockets with
commission, and build up your name as a careful and painstaking
planter?

'W