tween the perforated barrel and the chocks; the | no putting off until to-morrow can be allowed,

แ

projecting copper points tear off the soft cherry,
while the coffee beans, in their parchment case,
fall through the chocks into a large box. These
pulpers (four in number) were worked by a
water-wheel of great power, and turned out in
six hours as much coffee as was gathered by
three hundred men during the whole day.
From the pulper-box the parchment coffee is
shoveled to the cisterns".
―enormous square
wooden vats. In these the new coffee is placed,
just covered with water, in which state it is
left for periods varying from twelve to eighteen
hours, according to the judgment of the mana-
ger. The object of this soaking is to produce
a slight fermentation of the mucilaginous mat-
ter adhering to "the parchment," in order to
facilitate its removal, as otherwise it would
harden the skin, and render the coffee very dif-
ficult to peel or clean. When I inspected the
works on Soolookande, several cisterns of fer-
mented coffee were being turned out, to admit
other parcels from the pulper, and also to enable
the soaked coffee to be washed. Coolies were
busily employed shoveling the berries from one
cistern to another; others were letting on clean
water. Some were busy stirring the contents
of the cisterns briskly about; while some, again,
were letting off the foul water; and a few were
engaged in raking the thoroughly-washed coffee
from the washing platforms to the barbecues.

or confusion and loss will be the consequence. Any heaps of half dried coffee, permitted to remain unturned in the store, or not exposed on the "barbecue," will heat, and become discolored, and in that condition is known among commercial men as Country Damaged."

The constant ventilation of a coffee store is of primary importance in checking any ten. dency to fermentation in the uncured beans; an ingenious planter has recently availed himself of this fact, and invented an apparatus which forces an unbroken current of dry, warm air, through the piles of damp coffee, thus continuing the curing process in the midst of the most rainy weather.

When a considerable portion of the gathering is completed, the manager has to see to his means of transport before his store is too crowded. A well conducted plantation will have its own cattle to assist in conveying the crop to Kandy; it will have roomy and dry cattlepens, fields of guinea-grass, and pasture grounds attached, as well as a manure-pit, into which all refuse and the husks of the coffee are thrown, to be afterward turned to valuable account.

The carriage of coffee into Kandy is per formed by pack-bullocks, and sometimes by the coolies, who carry it on their heads, but these latter can seldom be employed away from pick ing during the crop time. By either means, however, transport forms a serious item in the expenses of a good many estates. From some of the distant hill-estates possessing no cattle, . and with indifferent jungle-paths, the convey. ance of their crops to Kandy will often cost fully six shillings the hundred weight of clean coffee, equal to about three pence per mile. From Kandy to Colombo, by the common bul

The barbecues on this property were very extensive about twenty thousand square feet, all gently sloped away from their centres, and smooth as glass. They were of stone, coated over with lime well polished, and so white, that it was with difficulty I could look at them with the sun shining full upon their bright surfaces. Over these drying grounds the coffee, when quite olean and white, is spread, at first thick-lock-cart of the country, the cost will amount ly, but gradually more thinly, until, on the last day, it is placed only one bean thick. Four days' sunning are usually required, though occasionally many more are necessary before the coffee can be heaped away in the store without risk of spoiling. All that is required is to dry it sufficiently for transport to Kandy, and thence to Colombo, where it undergoes a final curing previous to having its parchment skin removed, and the faulty and broken berries picked out. Scarcely any estates are enabled to effectully dry their crops, owing to the long continuance of wet weather on the hills.

The "dry floor" of this store resembled very much the inside of a malting-house. It was nicely boarded, and nearly half full of coffee, white and in various stages of dryness. Some of it, at one end, was being measured into two bushel bags, tied up, marked and entered in the "packed" book, ready for dispatch to Kandy. Every thing was done on a system; the bags were piled up in tens; and the loose coffee was kept in heaps of fixed quantities as a check on the measuring. Bags, rakes, measures, twine, had all their proper places allotted them. Each day's work must be finished off-hand at once;

to about two or three shillings the clean hundred weight, in all, eight or nine shillings the hundred weight from the plantation to the port of shipment, being twice as much for conveying it less than a hundred miles, as it costs for freight to England, about sixteen thousand miles. One would imagine that it would not require much sagacity to discern that, in such a country as this, a railroad would be an incalculable benefit to the whole community. To make this apparent even to the meanest Cingalese capacity, we may mention that, even at the present time, transit is required from the interior of the island to its seaports, for enough coffee for shipment to Great Britain alone, to cause a railroad to be remunerative. The quantity of coffee imported from British possessions abroad in 1850, was upward of forty millions of pounds avoirdupois; and a very large proportion of this came from Ceylon. What additional quantities are required for the especially coffee-bibbing nations which lie between Ceylon and this country, surpass all present calculation; enough, we should think, sails away from this island in the course of every year, the transit of which to its sea-board, would pay for a regular net-work of railways.

fused picture. The tables having been laid out | lected together, and handed to the hungry the previous day, at the coppers, which are groups of mendicants who are seated in adjoinerected in the open air, all the neighbors, and ing paddocks. From the tables to rustic games, the invited, who have any pretension to the reels, gavottes, and jabadoos; then to the tables culinary art, are ready with advice and assist- again; and they continue in this manner tili ance. It is curious to see them, in the blazing midnight announces to the guests that it is time atmosphere of the huge fires, watching enormous to retire. joints of meat and other comestibles cooking in the numerous and vast utensils; nevertheless, however zealous they may be, there are few who do not desert their post when the firing of guns and the distant sound of the bagpipes announce the return of the wedding procession.

The newly married couple are at the head of the train, preceded by pipers, and fiddlers, and single-stick players, who triumphantly lead the way; the nearest relatives of the young pair next follow; then the rest of the guests without order, rushing on helter-skelter, each in the varied and picturesque costume of his district; some on foot, some on horseback, most frequently two individuals on the same beast, the man seated upon a stuffed pad which serves as a saddle, and the wife, with arm around his waist, seated upon the crupper;-an every-day sight, not many years ago, in the rural districts of England, when roads were bad, and the gig and taxed-cart uninvented. The mendicants follow at their heels by hundreds, to share the remnants of the feast.

As soon as the confusion occasioned by the arrival of such a multitude has subsided, the guests place themselves at the tables. These are formed of rough and narrow planks, supported by stakes driven into the ground, the benches constructed after the same fashion; and they are raised in proportion to the height

The company having diminished by degrees, at length leave the groomsman and the bridesmaid the only strangers remaining, who are bound to disappear the last, and put the bride and bridegroom, with due and proper solemnity, to rest they then retire singing "Veni Creator." In some districts they are compelled, by custom, to watch during the whole night in the bridal chamber; in others, they hold at the foot of the bed a lighted candle, between the fingers, and do not withdraw until the flame has descended to the palm of the hand. In another locality the groom's-man is bound during the whole long night to throw nuts at the husband, who cracks them, and gives the kernel to his bride to eat. The festivity which a marriage occasions generally lasts three days, and, on Friday, the youthful wife embraces the companions of her childhood and bids them farewell, as if she never meant to return. Indeed, from the period of marriage, a new life commences for the Bretone, whose days of single blessedness have been days of festivity and freedom; and it would seem that when once the wedding-ring has been placed upon the finger, her only business is the care of her household-her only delight, the peace of her domestic hearth.

[From Chambers's Edinburgh Journal.] JOANNA BAILLIE. OANNA BAILLIE was born in the year

JOAN

of the tables, so that you may have your knees between your plate and yourself; if, in a real 1762, at the manse of Bothwell, in LanarkBreton wedding, you happen to be supplied with shire. Her father had just been translated from such an article for a luxury of this description the parish of Shotts to that of Bothwell; and has not yet reached very far into Brittany: the on the very first day of the family's removal soup is eaten out of a wooden bowl, and the into the new manse, while the furniture still lay meat cut up and eaten in the hand, or, as the tied up in bundles on the floors, Mrs. Baillie phrase goes, "upon the thumb." Every indi- was taken ill, probably from over-fatigue, and vidual, as a matter of course, carries his own was prematurely brought to bed of twincase or pocket knife; the liquids are served in daughters, one of whom died in the birth, and rude earthenware, and each drinks out of a cup the other, named Joanna-after her maternal apportioned to five or six individuals. It is the uncle, the celebrated John Hunter-lived for height of civility to hand one's cup to a neigh-eighty-nine years, and became the most celebor, so that he may assist in emptying it; and a refusal would be considered extremely rude and insolent.

brated of her race, and one of the most celebrated women of her time.

Those who like to trace the descent of fine qualities, will be interested to know that Joanna's mother-herself a beautiful and agreeable woman-was the only sister of those remarkable men, William and John Hunter; and that her father, a clergyman of respectable abilities, was of the same descent with that Baillie of Jarviswood who nobly suffered for the religion and independence of his country.

The husband and his immediate relatives are in waiting, and anticipate every one's wants and wishes-pressing each to take care of himself: they themselves share in no part of the entertainment, save the compliments which are showered, and the cups of cider and wine which civility obliges them to accept. After each course music strikes up, and the whole assembly rise from the tables. One party gets Although Mrs. Baillie was forty years of age up a wrestling-match; the Bretons are as fa- when she married, she gave birth to five children. mous as their cousins in Cornwall at this athletic Of these, three grew up: the eldest, Agnes game or a match at single-stick; another a who still survives; the celebrated Matthew, foot-race, or a dance; while the dishes are col-physician to George III.; and Joanna.

widow and her high-spirited young people had the opportunity of manifesting the true delicacy and respectable pride which have ever distinguished the family. They carefully avoided disclosing to, their generous relative any thing more than was unavoidable of these obligations, preferring, with noble self-denial, and at the expense of being looked down upon as niggardly and pocr-spirited by neighbors who knew nothing of their motives, to pay the remainder out of their moderate income. Such a trait as this is surely well worth being recorded.

When Joanna was seven years old, her father | family, and offered to relieve her mind by entirely removed to Hamilton. There he was colleague discharging her husband's liabilities. Here the to the Rev. Mr. Miller, father to the well-known professor of law at Glasgow of that name, whose daughters were throughout life among Joanna's most intimate and cherished friends. All that is known of her before she quitted Bothwell seems to be, that she was an active, sprightly child, fond of play, and very unfond of lessons -the difficulty of fixing her attention long enough to enable her to learn the alphabet having been in her case rather greater than it is with ordinary children. At twelve years of age, though still no scholar, she was a clever, lively, shrewd girl, and even then showed something of the creative power for which she was afterward so remarkable. Miss Miller well recollects being closeted with her and other young companions for the purpose of hearing her narrate little stories of her own invention, which she did in a graphic and amusing manner.

Even after they were clear with the world, Mrs. Baillie and her daughters continued to live in the strictest seclusion at Long Calderwood. Soon after his father's death, young Matthew obtained a Glasgow exhibition to Oxford; and having studied successfully there for some years, joined his uncle William in London, for the purpose of assisting him in his lectures. John Hunter, who had been originally intended for a humbler occupation, had long before this time been called to London by the successful William

medical profession-and had, in a few months, acquired such a knowledge of anatomy, as to be capable of demonstrating to the pupils in the dissecting-room. His health having been impaired by intense study, he had gone abroad for a year or two as staff-surgeon, and served in Portugal. On his return to London, he had devoted his powerful energies to the study of comparative anatomy, and before Matthew Baillie came to London, had erected a menagerie at Brompton for carrying on that useful branch of science. By his extraordinary genius, he subsequently rose to be inspector-general of hospitals and surgeon-general, and became one of the most famous men of his age.

Agnes, the elder sister-Joanna's faithful and beloved companion through a long life; and to whom, on entering her seventieth year, she addressed the exquisite poem of the "Birthday"

After being seven years at Hamilton, Mr. Baillie was promoted to the chair of divinity in the University of Glasgow. There Joanna attended Miss M'Intosh's boarding-school, and made some proficiency in the accomplishments-had been brought forward by him in the of music and drawing; for both of which she had a fine taste, though it was never fully cultivated. A constant residence in the crowded and smoky town of Glasgow would have proved very irksome to those accustomed, like the Baillies, to the sweet, healthful seclusion of a country manse; but they were never condemned to it. William Hunter, then accoucheur to Queen Charlotte, and in good general practice as a physician, was in possession of the little family property of Long Calderwood in Lanarkshire; and being himself confined to London by his professional duties, he invited his sister and her family to reside at his house there during the summer months. Nothing could have been more agreeable or beneficial to Joanna than this manner of life, had it continued. Her father had now a sufficiently large income to enable him to give his children the full advantage of the best teaching, and he was most anxious-which no one will ever read unmoved-was that they should enjoy it. Unfortunately, he only survived his removal to Glasgow two years; and by his premature death, his widow and family were left not only entirely unprovided for, but in very involved circumstances. The living at Hamilton had been too small to admit of any thing being saved from it; and the expense of removing, the purchase of furniture suitable to their new position, the repairing and furnishing of the house at Long Calderwood, besides the increased cost of living in a town, had in combination brought their family into an expenditure which two years of an enlarged income were by no means sufficient to meet. Dr. William Hunter came immediately to their assistance. He was at that time fast acquiring the large fortune which enabled him to leave behind him so noble a monument as the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. He generously settled an adequate income on his sister and her

very early an accomplished girl. Unlike Joanna, she had always been a diligent, attentive scholar; and unlike her also, was possessed of a remarkably retentive memory. In her companionship, and in the entire leisure of her six years' seclusion among the picturesque scenery of Long Calderwood, it may be supposed that Joanna's powerful intellect would have been awakened, and her wonderfully fertile imagination begun to assume some of those varied forms of truth and beauty which have since impressed themselves so vividly on the hearts and minds of her contemporaries. But like the graceful forms which the eye of the young sculptor has only yet seen in vision, those divine creations of her genius, before which the world was afterward to bow, still slumbered in the marble. Her genius partook of the slow growth, as well as the hardy vigor, of the pine-tree of her native rocks; but it had inherent power to shoot its

pretty cottage at Hampstead-that flowery, airy, charming retreat with which Joanna's name has now been so long and so intimately

roots deep down in the human heart, and to spread its branches toward the heavens in green and enduring beauty. In these years (from her sixteenth to her twenty-second), the only ten-associated. How long she there courted the dency she showed toward what afterward became the master-current of her mind, was in being a fervent worshiper of Shakspeare. She carefully studied select passages; delighted in getting her two favorite young friends-Miss Miller, and the lively Miss Graham of Gairbraid -to take different parts with her, and would so spout through a whole play with infinite satisfaction. Still she was no general student; and we are doubtful if at any time of her life she can be considered to have been a great reader.

About a dozen years previous to his death, which took place in 1783, Dr. William Hunter had completed his house in Great Windmillstreet. He had attached to it an anatomical theatre, apartments for lectures and dissections, and a magnificent room as a museum. At his death, the use of this valuable museum, which was destined ultimately to enrich the city of Glasgow, was bequeathed for the term of twenty years to his nephew Matthew, who had for some time past assisted him ably in his anatomical lectures. Besides this valuable bequest, the small family property of Long Calderwood was also left to Matthew Baillie, instead of his uncle, John Hunter, who was the heir-at-law. William had taken offense at his brother's marriagenot finding fault with his bride, who was an estimable woman, the sister of Dr., afterward Sir Everard Home-but, as it was whimsically said-disapproving of a philosopher marrying at all! But, however this may have been, young Matthew, with characteristic generosity, disliking to be enriched at the expense of those among his kindred who seemed to him to have a nearer claim, absolutely refused to take advantage of the bequest. The rejected little property thus, after all, fell legally to John; and only on the death of his son and daughter, a few years ago (without children), descended to William, the only son of Dr. Matthew Baillie, as their heir.

The

muses in secret is not known. Her reserved
nature and Scottish prudence at all events se-
cured her from making any display of their crude
favors. Toward the end of the century she first
appears to have been quietly feeling her way to-
ward the light. In sending some books to Scot-
land, to her ever-dear friend Miss Graham, she
slipped into the parcel a small volume of poems,
but without a hint as to the authorship.
poems were chiefly of a light, unassuming, and
merry cast. They were read by Miss Graham,
and others of her early associates-freely dis-
cussed and criticised among them, and certain-
ly not much admired. Though light mirth and
humor seem to have been more the character-
istics of her mind then than they were after-
ward, and though Miss Graham remarked that
there was a something in the little poems that
brought Joanna to her remembrance, still so
improbable did it seem, that no suspicion of
their true origin suggested itself to any of their
thoughts. The authorship of this little volume
was never claimed by her; but some of the best
poems and songs it contained, which were
afterward published in one of her works, at last
disclosed the secret.

In 1799, her thirty-eighth year, she gave to the world her first volume of plays on the Passions. It contained her two great tragedies on love and on hatred-" Basil" and "De Montfort ;" and one comedy, also on love-the "Tryal." They were prefaced by a long, plausible introductory discourse, in which she explained that these formed but a small portion of an extensive plan she had in view, hitherto unat tempted in any language, and for the accom plishment of which a lifetime would be limited enough. Her project we must very shortly describe as a design to write a series of plays, the chief object of which should be the delineation of all the higher passions of the human breast -each play exhibiting in the principal characSoon after his uncle's death, Matthew, who ter soine one great passion in all the stages had succeeded him as lecturer on anatomy, and of its development, from its origin to its final was rising fast in the esteem of his professional catastrophe; and in which, in order to produce brethren, prevailed on his mother and sisters to jrin him in London. Their uncle had left them all a small independence, and there they lived most happily with their brother in the house adjoining the museum, from about the year 1784 to 1791, when he married Miss Denman, daughter of Dr. Denman, and sister of Lord Denman, the late admirable lord chief-justice. This marriage was productive of great happiness to Joanna, as well as to her brother and the rest of the family.

Throughout their lives the most tender affection subsisted among them all. Mrs. Baillie and her daughters now retired to the country-at first a little way up the Thames, then to Hythe, near Dover; but they did not settle any where permanently till they located themselves in a

the strongest moral effect, the aim should be the expression and delineation of just sentiments and characteristic truth, rather than of marvelous incident, novel situation, or beautiful and sublime thought.

Although published anonymously, this volume excited an immediate sensation. In spite of theoretical limitations, it was found to be as full of original power, and delicate poetical beauty, as of truth and moral sentiment. Of course the authorship was keenly inquired into. As the publication had been negotiated by the accomplished Mrs. John Hunter-herself a follower of the muses, and the author of several lyrical poems of great sweetness and beauty, which were set to music by Haydn the credit was at first naturally given to her.

But Joan