urrent rate of wages; 20 to 25 cents a day (Java cents) and for
women 15 cents. On this estate, as on most others, there was a festival
fund for the coolies, that is a certain sum of money is spent annually
on their recreation, providing for musical instruments and paying for
travelling shows, etc. X. felt that he had had the best of shows
provided for him, a show estate, where the supply of labour was cheap
and unlimited, and the people well cared for without any elaborate
legislation being required for their protection. Here at any rate was a
positive result of the administration of the Dutch, and a confutation of
the stories of down-trodden peasants in Java; and the traveller made up
his mind that if possible he would one day be a planter and that his
plantation should be in Java.

CHAPTER XIII.

AMONG THE ROSES.

Life was so smooth and even in this little cottage by the river that
days flew by with that pleasant rapidity which leaves nothing to record
except a general sense of restful enjoyment. One expedition, however,
might be described, a visit paid to a neighbouring estate which had been
advertised for sale, as giving a glimpse of a typical phase of
up-country life. The call was paid about noon, and after riding down a
steep hill, where natives were busily engaged in planting tea, the two
Englishmen came upon a little square white house half hidden in a bend
in the stream. This building had a deserted, untidy look which was
intensified by the state of the garden which surrounded it; even at some
distance from the house the scent of roses was perceptible, and in the
garden itself, if such a wilderness deserves the name, the odour was
almost overpowering. The place was a miniature forest of rose-bushes,
loaded with lovely blossoms, roses such as X. had not seen since he
left his native land. Everything looked untidy and ragged and ruined;
the house, the creepers, the rose bushes, the grass, the pigeon lofts
all spoke of neglect and want of money to put them straight, a want
caused by the fall in the price of cinchona, a misfortune which had
involved many a fair estate and reduced it to the desolate and unkempt
condition exemplified by the one now visited. But even unkempt and
uncared for, what a picture it made! It was the realisation of a poetic
death--the victim smothered by roses beside the singing waters of a
brook. It was a long time before any one came, and the two visitors sat
in the verandah fee