s, I could undertake nothing independently,
and since the planters were all suffering from lack of hands, I could
not hire any boys. As the natives around the French plantations at
the Canal du Segond are practically exterminated, I saw hardly any;
but at least I got a good insight into the life on a plantation,
such as it was.

With his land, Mr. Ch. had rented about thirty boys, with whom he
was trying to work the completely decayed plantation. Many acres were
covered with coffee trees, but owing to the miserable management of
the French company, the planters had changed continually and the system
of planting just as often. Every manager had abandoned the work of his
predecessor and begun planting anew on a different system, so that now
there was an immense tract of land planted which had never yet yielded
a crop. In a short time such intended plantations are overgrown with
bush and reconquered by the wilderness; thus thousands of coffee trees
were covered with vines and struggled in vain for light and air. It
seem incredible that in two weeks, on cleared ground, grass can grow
up as tall as a man, and that after six months a cleared plantation
can be covered with bushes and shrubs with stems as thick as one's
finger. The planter, knowing that this overwhelming fertility and
the jealous advances of the forest are his most formidable enemies,
directs his most strenuous efforts to keeping clear his plantation,
especially while the plants are young and unable to fight down the
weeds. Later on, weeding is less urgent, but in the beginning it is the
one essential duty, more so than planting. Mr. Ch. had therefore an
enormous task before him, and as he could not expect any return from
the coffee trees for two or three years, he did as all planters do,
and sowed corn, which yields a crop after three months.

His labourers, dark, curly-haired men, clad in rags, were just
then occupied in gathering the big ears of corn. Sluggishly they
threw the golden ears over their shoulders to the ground, where it
was collected by the women and carried to the shed on the beach--a
long roof of leaves, without walls. Mr. Ch. urged the men to hurry,
as the corn had to be ready for shipment in a few days, the Pacific,
the French mail-steamer, being due. Produce deteriorates rapidly in
the islands owing to the humid climate, so it cannot be stored long,
especially where there is no dry storehouse. Therefore, crops can
only be gathered just be