I immediately foreboded some
disaster, which was soon explained. Mr. Perkes had kept up the
pace for fifteen miles, to Ramboddé, when, finding that the
elephant was not required, he took a little refreshment in the
shape of brandy and water, and then, to use his own expression,
"tooled the old elephant along till he came to a standstill."
He literally forced the poor beast up the steep pass for seven
miles, till it fell down and shortly after died.
Mr. Perkes was becoming an expensive man: a most sagacious and
tractable elephant was now added to his list of victims; and he
had the satisfaction of knowing that he was one of the few men
in the world who had ridden an elephant to death.
That afternoon, Mr. Perkes was being wheeled about the bazaar in
a wheelbarrow, insensibly drunk, by a brother emigrant, who was
also considerably elevated. Perkes had at some former time lost
an eye by the kick of a horse, and to conceal the disfigurement
he wore a black patch, which gave him very much the expression of
a bull terrier with a similar mark. Notwithstanding this
disadvantage in appearance, he was perpetually making successful
love to the maidservants, and he was altogether the most
incorrigible scamp that I ever met with, although I must do him
the justice to say he was thoroughly honest and industrious.
I shortly experienced great trouble with the emigrants; they
could not agree with the bailiff, and openly defied his
authority. I was obliged to send two of them to jail as an
example to the others. This produced the desired effect, and we
shortly got regularly to work.
There were now about a hundred and fifty natives employed in the
tedious process of exterminating jungle and forest, not felling,
but regularly digging out every tree and root, then piling, and
burning the mass, and leveling the cleared land in a state to
receive the plough. This was very expensive work, amounting to
about thirty pounds per acre. The root of a large tree would
frequently occupy three men a couple of days in its extraction,
which, at the rate of wages, at one shilling per diem, was very
costly. The land thus cleared was a light sandy loam, about
eighteen inches in depth with a gravel subsoil, and was
considered to be far superior to the patina (or natural
grass-land) soil, which was, in appearance, black loam on the
higher ground and of a peaty nature in the swamps.
The bailiff (Mr. Fowler) was of opinion that the patina soil was
the best; therefore, while the large native force was engaged in
sweeping the forest from the surface, operations were commenced
according to agricultural rules upon the patinas.
A tract of land known as the "Moon Plains," comprising about two
hundred acres, was immediately commenced upon. As some persons
considered the settlement at Newera Ellia the idea of a lunatic,
the "Moon Plain" was an appropriate spot for the experiment. A
tolerably level field of twenty acres was fenced in, and the work
begun by firing the patina and burning off all the grass. Then
came three teams, as follows:
Lord Ducie's patent cultivator, drawn by an elephant; a skim,
drawn by another elephant, and a long wood plough, drawn by eight
bullocks.
The field being divided into three sections, was thus quickly
pared of the turf, the patent cultivator working admirably, and
easily drawn by the elephant.
The weather being very dry and favorable for the work, the turf
was soon ready for burning; and being piled in long rows, much
trouble was saved in subsequently spreading the ashes. This
being completed, we had six teams at work, two horse, two
bullock, and two elephant; and the ploughing was soon finished.
The whole piece was then sown with oats.
It was an interesting sight to see the rough plain yielding to
the power of agricultural implements, especially as some of these
implements were drawn by animals not generally seen in plough
harness at home.
The "cultivator," which was sufficiently large to anchor any
twenty of the small native bullocks, looked a mere nothing
behind the splendid elephant who worked it, and it cut through
the wiry roots of the rank turf as a knife peels an apple. It
was amusing, to see this same elephant doing the work of three
separate teams when the seed was in the ground. She first drew a
pair of heavy harrows; attached to these and following behind
were a pair of light harrows, and behind these came a roller.
Thus the land had its first and second harrowing at the same time
with the rolling.
This elephant was particularly sagacious; and her farming work
being completed, she was employed in making, a dam across a
stream. She was a very large animal, and it was beautiful to
witness her wonderful sagacity in carrying and arranging the
heavy timber required. The rough trunks of trees from the lately
felled forest were lying within fifty yards of the spot, and the
trunks required for the dam were about fifteen feet long and
fourteen to eighteen inches in diameter. These she carried in
her mouth, shifting her hold along the log before she raised it
until she had obtained the exact balance; then, steadying it with
her trunk, she carried every log to the spot, and laid them
across the stream in parallel rows. These she herself arranged,
under the direction of her driver, with the reason apparently of
a human being.
The most extraordinary part of her performance was the arranging
of two immense logs of red keenar (one of the heaviest woods).
These were about eighteen feet long and two feet in diameter, and
they were in tended to lie on either bank of the stream, parallel
to the brook and close to the edge.
