too, and the poor creatures pine away for want of sufficient sustenance, until unable to earn for their masters the usual profits upon their labour.
Sometimes a bad year will tell so heavily upon the horses as almost to put a stop to the sandalwood trade altogether, and, in letters which we have just received from the colony, we are told that this has been the case during the last few months. What can one of these small settlers do in such a position? He has nothing to sell off his land, as his crops are scarcely enough for his own wants. How is he to pay his rent? How is he to get seed for next year? Only one course is open to him; he must mortgage his team and his carts to the store-keeper who supplies him.
When once this measure has been forced upon him a log is round his neck from which he will find it difficult to free himself, and, if he is not very careful and very hard-working, he will sooner or later find himself enslaved with far less chance of extrication than the man who, in the case of which we first spoke, became indebted for the assistance given him in clearing his own land and building his own house. The latter having no rent to pay for his farm can average one year with another, and make the good years balance the bad; while the tenant of another person's land at a high fixed rental, though he may seem to have a better chance of making money just at first, has not the comfort of looking forward to a time when, having paid off the advances made to him at starting, his land and house will have become his own; a home for his wife and family for which no rent is ever to be paid, where he can live in comfort without fear of any notice to quit
