all to be weighed, checked, noted down, and examined. Every man's hand
is against you. You cannot trust your own servants. For a paltry bribe
they will try to pass a bad parcel of seed, and even when you have
your European assistants to help you, it is hard work to avoid being
over-reached in some shape or other.

You have to keep up a large staff of writers, who make out invoices
and accounts, and keep the books. Your correspondence alone is enough
work for one man, and you have to tally bags, count coolies, see them
paid their daily wage, attend to lawsuits that may be going on, and
yet find time to superintend the operations of the farm, and keep an
eye to your rents and revenues from the villages. It is a busy, an
anxious time. You have a vast responsibility on your shoulders, and
when one takes into consideration the climate you have to contend
with, the home comforts and domestic joys you have to do without, the
constant tension of mind and irritation of body from dust, heat,
insects, lies, bribery, robbers, and villany of every description,
that meets you on all hands, it must be allowed that a planter at such
a time has no easy life.

The time at which you despatch the seed is also the very time when you
are preparing your land for spring sowings. This requires almost as
much surveillance as the seed-buying and despatching. You have not a
moment you can call your own. If you had subordinates you could trust,
who would be faithful and honest, you could safely leave part of the
work to them, but from very sad experience I have found that trusting
to a native is trusting to a very rotten stick. They are certainly not
all bad, but there are just enough exceptions to prove the rule.

One peculiar custom prevailed in this border district of North