cherry being fed on to this by a hopper, is
forced between the perforated barrel and
the chocks; the projecting copper points
tear off the soft cherry, whilst the coffee
beans, in their parchment case, fall through
the chocks into a large box. These pulpers
(four in number) were worked by a water-wheel
of great power, and turned out in six
hours as much coffee as was gathered by
three hundred men during the whole day.

From the pulper-box the parchment coffee
is shovelled to the "cisterns"—enormous
square wooden vats. In these the new coffee
is placed, just covered with water, in which
state it is left for periods varying from twelve
to eighteen hours, according to the judgment
of the manager. The object of this soaking
is to produce a slight fermentation of the
mucilaginous matter adhering to the "parchment,"
in order to facilitate its removal, as
otherwise it would harden the skin, and
render the coffee very difficult to peel or
clean. When I inspected the works on
Soolookande, several cisterns of fermented coffee
were being turned out, to admit other parcels
from the pulper, and also to enable the soaked
coffee to be washed. Coolies were busily
employed shovelling the berries from one
cistern to another; others were letting on
clean water. Some were busy stirring the
contents of the cisterns briskly about; whilst
some, again, were letting off the foul water;
and a few were engaged in raking the
thoroughly-washed coffee from the washing
platforms to the barbecues.

The barbecues on this property were very
extensive;—about twenty thousand square
feet, all gently sloped away from their centres,
and smooth as glass. They were of stone,
coated over with lime well polished, and so
white, that it was with difficulty I could look
at them with the sun shining full upon their
bright surfaces. Over these drying grounds
the coffee, when quite clean and white, is
spread, at first thickly, but gradually more
thinly, until, on the last day, it is placed only
one bean thick. Four days' sunning are
usually required, though occasionally many
more are necessary before the coffee can be
heaped away in the store without risk of
spoiling. All that is required is to dry it
sufficiently for transport to Kandy, and thence
to Colombo, where it undergoes a final curing,
previous to having its parchment skin
removed, and the faulty and broken berries
picked out. Scarcely any estates are enabled
to effectually dry their crops, owing to the
long continuance of wet weather on the hills.

The "dry floor" of this store resembled
very much the inside of a malting-house. It
was nicely boarded, and nearly half full of
coffee, white and in various stages of dryness.
Some of it, at one end, was being measured
into two bushel bags, tied up, marked and
entered in the "packed" book, ready for
despatch to Kandy. Everything was done on
a system; the bags were piled up in tens;
and the loose coffee was kept in heaps of fixed
quantities as a check on the measuring. Bags,
rakes, measures, twine, all had their proper
places allotted them. Each day's work must
be finished off-hand at once; no putting off
until to-morrow can be allowed, or confusion
and loss will be the consequence. Any heaps
of half dried coffee, permitted to remain
unturned in the store, or not exposed on the
"barbecue," will heat, and become discoloured,
and in that condition is known amongst
commercial men as "Country Damaged."

The constant ventilation of a coffee store is
of primary importance in checking any
tendency to fermentation in the uncured beans;
an ingenious planter has recently availed
himself of this fact, and invented an apparatus
which forces an unbroken current of dry, warm
air, through the piles of damp coffee, thus
continuing the curing process in the midst of the
most rainy weather.

When a considerable portion of the gathering
is completed, the manager has to see to
his means of transport, before his store is too
crowded. A well conducted plantation will
have its own cattle to assist in conveying the
crop to Kandy; it will have roomy and dry
cattle-pens, fields of guinea-grass, and pasture
grounds attached, as well as a manure-pit,
into which all refuse and the husks of the
coffee are thrown, to be afterwards turned to
valuable account

The carriage of coffee into Kandy is
performed by pack-bullocks, and sometimes by
the coolies, who carry it on their heads, but
these latter can seldom be employed away
from picking during the crop time. By either
means, however, transport forms a serious
item in the expenses of a good many estates.
From some of the distant hill-estates possessing
no cattle, and with indifferent jungle-paths,
the conveyance of their crops to Kandy
will often cost fully six shillings the hundred
weight of clean coffee, equal to about threepence
per mile. From Kandy to Colombo, by
the common bullock-cart of the country, the
cost will amount to two or three shillings the
clean hundred weight, in all, eight or nine
shillings the hundred weight from the plantation
to the port of shipment, being twice as
much for conveying it less than a hundred
miles, as it costs for freight to England, about
sixteen thousand miles. One would imagine
that it would not require much sagacity to
discern that, in such a country as this, a
railroad would be an incalculable benefit to
the whole community. To make this apparent
even to the meanest Cingalese capacity, we
may mention that, even at the present time,
transit is required from the interior of the
island to its seaports, for enough coffee for
shipment to Great Britain alone, to cause a
railroad to be remunerative. The quantity
of coffee imported from British possessions
abroad in 1850, was upwards of forty millions
of pounds avoirdupois; and a very large
proportion of this came from Ceylon. What