eed, after the beginning
of this century, a more disgusting record of cruelty and oppression it
would be difficult to find in the annals of any country. But three things
at least the record most distinctly proves. The first is (though this
hardly requires any additional proof) that man, though capable of being
the best, is also capable of being by far the worst of animals; the second
is that, Coorg being a sample of most of India in the times preceding
ours, the Hindoos were perfectly right in leaving few annals behind them;
and the third is that the blessings of British rule far exceed anything
that anyone could imagine who had not read something of the condition of
things in India before we took possession of it, for we have not only
conferred on the people immeasurable positive benefits, but relieved them
from the barbarous rule of cruel oppressors. In the case of Coorg there
can be no doubt that we allowed the Rajahs of that country to carry on
their work of cruelty and oppression towards their subjects for much too
long a period of time, and our failure to act can only be partially
excused by the fact that we were, in connection with the war with Tippoo,
under great obligation to the ancestor of the Rajah we deposed. However,
his vile oppression and cruel murders, which exceed anything the reader
could believe to be possible, could no longer be tolerated, and in 1834 he
was deposed, and his country absorbed into the British Dominions. Since
that date the general welfare of the country was of course insured, and
much of it is now a thriving coffee field which, as I shall afterwards
show, has been of the greatest benefit to Mysore, and the adjacent British
territory. Of the history and cultivation of coffee in Coorg, and my
visits to the province, I now propose to give some account.

After the planting season of 1857 I went with a brother planter for a
change of air to Mangalore, and from thence we went to Cannanore--a
military station about 200 miles further down the coast--and, after a
short stay there, rode up the Ghauts into Coorg, where we found the
planters busy clearing the forest. Three years before our arrival Mr.
Fowler had opened the Mercara Estate, and in 1855 Mr. H. Mann, and Mr.
Donald Stewart had begun work on the Sumpaji Ghaut, while Dr. Maxwell
opened up the Periambadi Ghaut Estates in 1856, and in 1857 Mr. Kaundinya
founded a plantation in the Bamboo district which lies on the eastern side
of Coorg.