Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-09-03
OUR COLONIES STORY.

''You all know Sandy MCPHERSON ?"
said our Colonel.
Intimately :" Perfectly p "As well
as my OWE brother, sir !" most of us replied,
though, if the truth be told, there was not
a man at that mess table who had ever
heard of Mr. Mcpherson before. You see,
it was the commanding officer who spoke,
and it was always risky saying him nay
when he expected yea.
'They used to call him, you recollect,
the Great Unwashed ; vulgar but ap-
propriate so6r5quet nevertheless, continued
the chief. ''Great, on account of his burly
and previously ugly person /; unwashed, by
reason of his accredited scant acquaintance
with brown windsor, spring water and the
functions of the dhirzees and dhObies, i. e.,
tailors and washerwomen of the land.
son his coffee estate in the mountains,
and among his undraped and unscrubbed
coolies, this disregard for the comforts and
conveniences of life went for nothing, per-
haps it was even in keeping with the sur
roundings but when he came down to the
city, walked in its public gardens and
esplanade, or showed with its swells at
the band, his appearance was something
too outrageous, and his brother K. BIS,
Knights of the Coffee Berry, and not, as
you might suppose of the Order OF the Bath,
dressy men hereabouts, whatever else they
are on their plantations, cast him COM
pletely into the shade by their get.up and
gorgeousness.
q As for the spinsters and young widows
of the station, by Mars, Bacchus, Apollo,
virorum,' as Colonel Damas in the play
puts it, there was scarce one but who
fought shy of admitting him into her pre-
sence as a morning visitor, much less as
suitor, though many of these blooming
ladies' were on the sharp lookout for the
silken chains of matrimony, and Barkis-
that is to say, McPherson-was, as they
knew, willing.
But, disadvantages OF person and attire
notwithstanding he was a right good fell
low, this same gentleman. He was honest,
from being mere adventurer without in
terest, friends or money, he had, sell. helped
only, saved up the bawbees little by little );
had bought patch after patch, acre after
acre, of virgin land cut down Its timber,
cleared it, planted it; and now he had
squatted down free from membranes on
Ailsa Craig as he called his property, as
pretty and as fruitful a small coffee estate
as COUlu DC IDuDu III one Vi Jlt llO5I PIC
turesque districts of this lovely island.
90 wish that could give you even a
faint idea of the exquisite beauty of its
scenery, as it stood on range of lofty hills
looking out on still higher mountains
clothed to their very summit with hoary
forest trees. / wish 1 could paint that
mighty waterfall, almost beside the house,
as 1t came rushing and tearing over beds
and powders of rock, tumbhng with an
incessant roar into foaming river below
l would | were able to picture the slopes
green with scented grass, the fields white
at one season with the snowy blossoms,
and at auosher red with the ripening fruit
of the coffee bushes, the towering crags
glowing with bright tropical flowers, and
the steep declivities verdant to their very
bases with ferns and hchens. | can't do
it boys and won't try. All that | want
to let you know is that it was deuced
nice sort OF place this habitat of the
Mcpherson; ana that to be settled there
with ones household goods and coffee SELL
ing at seventy or eighty shillings per hun
dred weight in the market would pay q
gracious deal better than does her most
gracious Majesty-God bless her and
the command of this dear old corps with
its unruly subs.
$50, no doubt, too, thought its owner as
he lolled and smoked at his cottage-front
and gazed at the silver bloom of the rudy
cherries of his trees growing almost up to
the very door. But it was a poor ungar-
nished comfortless higgledy -piggledy sort
of homestead that same dwelling house
for whatever else friend Sandy had done
toward the identifying and fertilizing OF
his land, his roof-tree, like his wardrobe,
had been utterly neglected Both wanted
Just exactly what ne thought they did
the wife-element to set them ship-shape
and presentable and as you have heard
before, for that desideratum he was on the
qui vive.
Now, you young gentlemen who are in
the habit of lawn tennising, afternoon tea
ing, talking, spooning, walking, driving,
with all the feminines, plain and colored,
of this place, and who think that you have
only to ask and be received-which | beg
and entreat you will not put to the test
cutting up the mess and so on-can't per-
haps realize to yourselves the difficulties
the worthy am speaking of had met with
In even this overstocked matrimonial en-
porium The Anglefralls, the Hunters,
the Hookers, lots of girls whom / will not
name, had snnbbed or turned up their
pretty noses at him when he came a
wooing and so. nolens UoLens, he remained
a bachelor, anathematizing his i'll luck, and
venting his disappointments upon the backs
of shirking and recusant Tamil coolies, the
recognized natural enemies of coffee and
the scapegoats of it's cultivators.
"Then, as a last resource, he sought,
among his brethren of the berry around,
counsel as to the most advisable method of
getting the so-needed help.mate, and the
first man he consulted was Herr Thaler, a
successful and rich German, whose estate
bordered on Ailsa Craig.
ar.c - y, so;d tha no-so,,,a Yara