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I'm not sure about 'later' - it doesn't seem to me to fit, and the first letter isn't like other initial l's.
I've had a look in the Oxford English Dictionary, and it gives an old word 'cate', which is thought to have come from a Hindi word via Portuguese. The more usual form is 'catechu', and it refers to various trees (eg catechu acacia or catechu palm) or the substances obtained from them. Might that fit?
My line of thinking goes:
»cultivated spots« on »perpendicular surfaces« – they are certainly not terraced fields but slash and burn patches. So the chance of trees in these spots is nearly nil (they are cut down before burning). This all with the kind of trees you are mentioned quite common in these parts (the seed pods are used for food in a fermented state). But that kind of tree gives a lot of shade. This is not needed in local plantations (no tea, no coffee. at least not at the time)
The second thing is »fine green«. The time is early January. So the only thing you would see up there is preparations for the new agricultural season (seed beds for rice) or very early plant shoots – »fine green«. To me everything after »fine green« is just a supposition (from previous experience) and neither cotton nor oil plants usually grow very tall.
And from all the words possible »later« fits best. The starting »l« is not very clear, but we have to keep in mind that this is written in the field, most certainly without table. Writing with ink alone is some challenge under these circumstances (how to keep the ink in between and from detoriating &c.).
I also implied a comma – probably a far stretch. But then again, Jenkins was not into punctuation (the English language is not very formal in this regard anyway, from my experience, unlike other european languages). But he repeatedly used the end of the column as a break.
After all, these diaries have a at times a style of collections of »Wortfetzen« (scraps of conversations), loose clusters of ideas. Very few people have a clear stream of thought and are able to write that down accordingly.
And maybe we put to much thought in some unimportant part and the meaning was completely different altogether
I am happy to discuss this further.
j.
