niggers, but they aint no more use than cats at liftin. Plese Zur
come and see whats to be done. "Your Humbel Servt, "H. PERKES."

This was pleasant, certainly - a new carriage and a pair of fine
Australian horses smashed before they reached Newera Ellia!

This was, however, the commencement of a chapter of accidents. I
went down the pass, and there, sure enough, I had a fine
bird's-eye view of the carriage down a precipice on the road
side. One horse was so injured that it was necessary to destroy
him; the other died a few days after. Perkes had been
intoxicated; and, while driving at a full gallop round a corner,
over went the carriages and horses.

On my return to Newera Ellia, I found a letter informing me that
the short-horn cow had halted at Amberpussé, thirty-seven miles
from Colombo, dangerously ill. The next morning another letter
informed me that she was dead. This was a sad loss after the
trouble of bringing so fine an animal from England; and I
regretted her far more than both carriage and horses together, as
my ideas for breeding some thorough-bred stock were for the
present extinguished.

There is nothing like one misfortune for breeding another; and
what with the loss of carriage, horses and cow, the string of
accidents had fairly commenced. The carriage still lay
inverted; and although a tolerable specimen of a smash, I
determined to pay a certain honor to its remains by not allowing
it to lie and rot upon the ground. Accordingly, I sent the
blacksmith with a gang of men, and Perkes was ordered to