to sixty miles of the various plantations, and it is certain that at no very distant date these distances will be halved, and that we shall then be within seventeen to eighteen days of London—­at present we may be said to be within eighteen to nineteen days of it.  In expense the cost has been halved; a first-class return ticket from Bombay to London may now be had for L90, and on other lines of steamers the rates are lower.  But it is now time to turn from matters of detail to consider the advantages of coffee in Mysore, as a good, safe, and permanent investment, and in order to show that the two last mentioned statements are well founded, I have obtained some details which will show the probable profits of coffee in Mysore.  For obvious reasons I withhold the names of the estates.  I have said that the investment is a permanent one, and by this I mean that, unless ruined by profound and incredible stupidity, a well shaded coffee estate in Mysore will last as long as the world will, or at any rate as long as the inhabitants of it choose to drink coffee, and in confirmation of this opinion, I may mention that one of the most flourishing pieces of coffee I have ever seen in Mysore was planted on land first opened about ninety-five years ago, and which was replanted about seventy years after it was first opened.  I can also point to land opened in 1857, and which has in recent years been replanted with the new variety of coffee imported from Coorg, and, as the owner of it said to me last year when we were going round the property, “The estate is now looking better than you have ever seen it.”  But all the old estates in Mysore that were planted in the proper coffee zone are in existence now, and many of them look better than they ever did.  The durability of coffee property in Mysore, then, is, as we have seen, not a subject of speculation, but an ascertained fact, and I now proceed to show that it is as profitable as it is durable.

The first case I have to give relates to coffee property purchased by a friend of mine with money borrowed at eight per cent. interest, and with his permission I publish an account of his investment, as it not only shows what has been done in Mysore in the face of great difficulties, but illustrates the profits that may be expected from a property that is well managed, and well situated as regards soil and climate.  In 1876, then, he purchased a native estate of 240 acres of good coffee land, of which 180 acres had been very irregularly planted with “chick” coffee (the original Mysore plant).  The total cost amounted to 98,000 rupees, which sum was borrowed at eight per cent.  By 1880 the loan was reduced, from the profits of the coffee, by about 30,000 rupees, and my friend then purchased an adjoining native estate of 163 acres, sixty of which were also very irregularly planted with chick coffee.  The price was 13,250 rupees, which he also borrowed at eight per cent.  The total amount borrowed was thus 111,250 rupees,