Let’s meander up the rugged pathways and watch the mottled crowd of newly recruited, over 14s, coup de grace, every Planter’s bane, the obnoxious growth that, by stealth, deprives the tea bush of the nutrition that is provided for its well-being. As we go a little further, we watch with interest, the mature men slash the pruning knives across the hapless bushes, like retributive injustice, taking off branches that have served their purpose, leaving the old tea bush to rejuvenate it self. There in the distance you can spy the brawnier men, with shovel and spade in hand, scouring out the drains that need to be kept free of accumulated silt to let the rains fill and flow. Yet further up you can see what appears to be like a wedding corroboree and men are throwing confetti. Not really;it is the inorganic nutrition for the tea bushes that is being broadcast along the rows. Looking still further up, you can see masked men spraying an atomised insecticide on bushes that are sick, being afflicted by a blight,a blister more like small pox. So we better keep our distance.

Down to earth. That stentor voice you hear is a Supervisor, Kangany, bawling at some helpless worker, knowing that we are around, to let us know that he is doing a job. There’s the muster horn – that’s the call for all the “gunnied and combleyd” pluckers to return to the muster ground or weighing shed. You see a parade of women, with baskets slung across their backs, wending their way to unload their picks and quietly slink away to their little homes and household chores.

We cannot pass this day without sparing a thought for what’s happening in that large silver building over there, the Factory. It churns our two leaves and the bud into the golden brew that inebriates us.The verdant leaf passes through many processes, withering, rolling, sifting, drying, grading and comes out as little black crystals or dust to grace our pot at home, over many beautiful housewife’s tales.

Let us wander back along the road, bedecked with rose-petalled avenues, dahlias, bougainvillea and dancing daffodils, to the old colonial cottage – our cloister and our hearth,where we have dreamed dreams of our little cherubs and cherubim, our very own, prancing and cavorting in gay delight. Where we have listened to the music of the crackling fireside; where we have sat cuddled together; where we have rocked in the old rocking-chair; or lolled with a “book of verse, a glass of wine and thou……” With the parting day, I will release your hand, but keep me tenderly in your heart. So, the shades of night have fallen and the busy world is hushed. “The white silence brims the hollow of the hills”. I am afraid to talk, lest I mar the silent beauty I beheld.