hem, putting one in mind--if it were not for the Palmistes and
Bamboos and the crowd of black vultures over an occasional dead
animal--of English parks.

But few English parks have such backgrounds. To the right, the vast
southern flat, with its smoking engine-house chimneys and bright
green cane-pieces, and, beyond all, the black wall of the primeval
forest; and to the left, some half mile off, the steep slopes of the
green northern mountains blazing in the sun, and sending down, every
two or three miles, out of some charming glen, a clear pebbly brook,
each winding through its narrow strip of vega. The vega is usually
a highly cultivated cane-piece, where great lizards sit in the
mouths of their burrows, and watch the passer by with intense
interest. Coolies and Negroes are at work in it: but only a few;
for the strength of the hands is away at the engine-house, making
sugar day and night. There is a piece of cane in act of being cut.
The men are hewing down the giant grass with cutlasses; the women
stripping off the leaves, and then piling the cane in carts drawn by
mules, the leaders of which draw by rope traces two or three times
as long as themselves. You wonder why such a seeming waste of power
is allowed, till you see one of the carts stick fast in a mud-hole,
and discover that even in the West Indies there is a good reason for
everything, and that the Creoles know their own business best. For
the wheelers, being in the slough with the cart, are powerless; but
the leaders, who have scrambled through, are safe on dry land at the
end of their long traces, and haul out their brethren, cart and all,
amid the yells, and I am sorry to say blows, of the black gentlemen
in attendance. But cane cutting is altogether a busy, happy scene.
The heat is awful, and all limbs rain perspiration: yet no one
seems to mind the heat; all look fat and jolly; and they have cause
to do so, for all, at every spare moment, are sucking sugar-cane.

You pull up, and take off your hat to the party. The Negroes shout,
'Marnin', sa!' The Coolies salaam gracefully, hand to forehead.
You return the salaam, hand to heart, which is considered the
correct thing on the part of a superior in rank; whereat the Coolies
look exceedingly pleased; and then the whole party, without visible
reason, burst into shouts of laughter.

The manager rides up, probably under an umbrella, as you are, and a
pleasant