[47] It is satisfactory to learn that caste feelings and regulations have a favourable influence with natives, even when they go to a foreign country; and it is equally satisfactory to quote the evidence of a gentleman who laughs at caste as an absurd custom. Mr. W. Sabonadière, in his work of "The Coffee Planter in Ceylon" writes as follows: "The coolies who resort to Ceylon are of various castes. Those mostly preferred by planters are the low castes, such as Pallans, shanars, and Pariahs, as being more accustomed to and fit for hard work; but, as a class, they are more given to drink, spend their money more freely, and are more quarrelsome than the higher classes, whom their caste forbids to drink arrack or spirits, and who are more cleanly in their habits, better behaved (as fearing to lose caste), who have land of their own on the coast, and are more interested in working regularly and gaining their wages to take away with them." CHAPTER IX. COFFEE PLANTING IN COORG. The British Province of Coorg consists of a mountainous and jungly tract of country with elevations of from about 2,700 to 3,809 feet. The last is the elevation of the capital, Mercara, the tableland of which, for a stretch of about 26 miles, averages about 3,500 feet. This little province lies, as the reader will see by a glance at the map, on the south-west border of Mysore, with which, since its annexation, it has always been connected, and the Resident of Mysore invariably holds the post of Commissioner of Coorg. The population of Coorg is just over 170,000, and its area is 1,583 square miles, or about one-fourth of the size of Yorkshire. But, though small in extent and population, its Rajah and people played an important part as our allies in the war with Tippoo, and a full account of the facts is given in the history of Coorg which has been published in the "Mysore and Coorg Gazetteer." The history of the country, however, which has been gathered up by various European writers, is by no means of an alluring character, and indeed, after the beginning of this century, a more disgusting record of cruelty and oppression it would be difficult to find in the annals of any country. But three things at least the record most distinctly proves. The first is (though this hardly requires any additional proof) that man, though capable of being the best, is also capable of being by far the worst of animals; the second is that, Coorg being a sample of most of India in the times preceding ours, the Hindoos were perfectly right in leaving few annals behind them; and the third is that the blessings of British rule far exceed anything that anyone could imagine who had not read something of the condition of things in India before we took possession of it, for we have not only conferred on the people immeasurable positive benefits, but relieved them from the barbarous rule of cruel oppressors. In the case of Coorg there