[Illustration: VIEW ON A COFFEE ESTATE.] "Most of the coffee-planters are young Englishmen, with money or moneyed friends, who come or are sent to Ceylon to make their fortunes. The balance are generally the representatives of wealthy firms or individuals in Colombo, and owe their positions to personal influence or the advancement of a few thousands by way of security. An insight into the business may be obtained by glancing at the advertising columns of the Ceylon _Observer_, a newspaper published at Colombo. One firm advertises that it will make advances on crops not yet gathered, and another offers to make contracts for consignments. A man with money to lend desires a situation as manager of a coffee estate, and another who can control consignments wishes a similar place. We are told that nearly every house in Colombo is interested, one way and another, in the coffee estates, generally through advances made on the growing crops. "The system is much like that which prevailed in the Southern United States before the war, when the cotton-planter on the Mississippi River received advances from his factor in New Orleans, so that when his crop was gathered nearly all the proceeds were required to pay the debts that had been accumulated during the year. "The factor in Colombo furnishes the provisions necessary for the estate, and charges a good commission for his trouble. He supplies the tools and machinery for the use of the planter, and provides money for employing the laborers engaged in the cultivation. By the time the crop comes in a large debt has been created, and if the yield is good and the market is up, nobody has any occasion to complain. But of late years the prices have been so low that nobody has made anything, and many plantations have been kept up at a loss. [Illustration: PLANTATION LABORERS.] "Coffee culture in Ceylon and Java are pretty much alike, as the plant is the same, and the machinery for collecting the crop and preparing it for market is managed on a similar principle. The plant is raised from the seed, and begins to bear when it is six years old, and has attained the size of a large currant-bush. The berries are like large cherries, and are gathered by hand; they are run through a machine which separates the bean from the husk, and allows the former to settle to the bottom of a tank of water, while the latter are floated away through a trough. The beans are then dried in the sun, or by a fire if the weather is cloudy, and when sufficiently cured they are put in sacks and sent to Colombo. Here they are sorted and again dried, so as to fit them for transportation to England or America. It is in the condition in which it left Colombo when the merchants get it in New York." [Illustration: SHED ON A COFFEE PLANTATION.] While they were going through the buildings where the coffee-berries were crushed, and the beans separated from the husks, Fred suddenly stooped, and then sprung back as though greatly alarmed.