takes little or no interest in the landscape, his attention
being wholly absorbed by the small round berries, which may before long
be converted into grains of gold, if the coffee crop yield as it
promises.

The pickers are at their work. A score of them are close at hand, with
their baskets already filled. Observe how they choose the dark red, and
eschew the unripe green, or the black and overdone berry. The second
overseer, whip in hand, is ever behind, to see that the pickers do not
flag. He is a genuine white; but his complexion is so bronzed, that you
would scarcely distinguish him from a mulatto, save for his lank hair
and thin lips. He volunteers explanation. He points to the big fruit of
the cacao, or cocoa plant, and shows which are the bread, the milk and
the cotton trees. Learning that I am a foreigner and an Englishman, he
offers some useful information respecting certain trees and plants which
yield invaluable products, such as might be turned to good account by an
enterprising European, but which are unnoticed and neglected by the
wealthy independent native. At our request, he unsheathes his machete
and cuts us a few odd-shaped twigs from a coffee bush, with which we may
manufacture walking-sticks. He exhibits one of his own handiwork. It is
engraved all over, polished and stained in imitation of a snake; and,
as it rests in the green grass, it looks the very counterpart of such a
reptile, with beady eyes and scaly back. On closer acquaintanceship, I
find the second overseer to be a great connoisseur in canes.

It is our breakfast hour, and Dona Belen and the other ladies will not
like to be kept waiting. So we return to the barbacue, where the
powerful odour of roasting coffee is wafted towards us. The black cook
is roasting a quantity of the drab seed, in a flat pipkin over a slow
fire. She is careful to keep the seed in motion with a stick, lest it
burn; and when it has attained the approved rich brown hue, she
sprinkles a spoonful of sugar over it to bring out its flavour, and then
leaves it to cool on the ground. Near her are a wooden pestle and mortar
for reducing the crisp toasted seed to powder; and a small framework of
wood in which rests a flannel bag for straining the rich brown decoction
after it has been mixed and boiled.

Substantial breakfast over, some of us carry our hammocks and betake
ourselves to the adjacent stream. Here, beneath the shade of lofty
bamboos, within hearing of the mus