stages
inseparable from every "mania."

In the early days of our possession, the Kandian district was little
known, and sanguine imaginations painted the hidden prospect in their
ideal colors, expecting that a trace once opened to the interior would
be the road to fortune.

How these golden expectations have been disappointed the broken
fortunes of many enterprising planters can explain.

The protective duty being withdrawn, a competition with foreign coffee
at once reduced the splendid prices of olden times to a more moderate
standard, and took forty per cent. out of the pockets of the planters.
Coffee, which in those days brought from one hundred shillings to one
hundred and forty shillings per hundred-weight, is now reduced to from
sixty shillings to eighty shillings.

This sudden reduction created an equally sudden panic among the
planters, many of whom were men of straw, who had rushed to Ceylon at
the first cry of coffee "fortunes," and who had embarked on an
extensive scale with borrowed capital. These were the first to smash.
In those days the expenses of bringing land into cultivation were more
than double the present rate, and, the cultivation of coffee not being
so well understood, the produce per acre was comparatively small. This
combination of untoward circumstances was sufficient cause for the
alarm which ensued, and estates were thrust into the market and knocked
down for whatever could be realized. Mercantile houses were dragged
down into the general ruin, and a dark cloud settled over the Cinnamon
isle.

As the after effects of a "hurricane" are a more healthy atmosphere and
an increased vigor in all vegetation, so are the usual sequels to a
panic in the commercial world. Things are brought down to their real
value and level; men of straw are swept away, and affairs are commenced
anew upon a sound and steady basis. Capital is invested with caution,
and improvements are entered upon step by step, until success is
assured.

The reduction in the price of coffee was accordingly met by a
corresponding system of expenditure and by an improved state of
cultivation; and at the present time the agricultural prospects of the
colony are in a more healthy state than they have ever been since the
commencement of coffee cultivation.

There is no longer any doubt that a coffee estate in a good situation
in Ceylon will pay a large interest for the capital invested, and will
ultimately enrich the propri