nd chew the stick of soft,
saccharine pulp, the juice running out of their mouths as they eat. They
seem to enjoy it so highly, that I am tempted to try the taste of it,
myself. But I shall have time for all this at La Ariadne.

These stations consist merely of one or two buildings, where the produce
of the neighborhood is collected for transportation, and at which there
are very few passengers. The railroad is intended for the carriage of
sugar and other produce, and gets its support almost entirely in that
way; for it runs through a sparse, rural population, where there are no
towns; yet so large and valuable is the sugar crop that I believe the
road is well supported. At each station are its hangers-on of free
Negroes, a few slaves on duty as carriers, a few low whites, and now and
then someone who looks as if he might be an overseer or mayoral of a
plantation.

Limonar appears in large letters on the small building where we next
stop, and I get out and inquire of a squad of idlers for the plantation
of Senor Chartrand. They point to a group of white buildings about a
quarter of a mile distant, standing prettily under high shade-trees, and
approached by an avenue of orange trees. Getting a tall Negro to
shoulder my bag, for a real, I walk to the house. It is an afternoon of
exquisite beauty. How can any one have a weather sensation, in such an
air as this? There is no current of the slightest chill anywhere,
neither is it oppressively hot. The air is serene and pure and light.
The sky gives its mild assurance of settled fair weather. All about me
is rich verdure, over a gently undulating surface of deeply fertile
country, with here and there a high hill in the horizon, and, on one
side, a ridge that may be called mountains. There is no sound but that
of the birds, and in the next tree they may be counted by hundreds. Wild
flowers, of all colors and scents, cover the ground and the thickets.
This is the famous red earth, too. The avenue looks as if it had been
laid down with pulverized brick, and all the dust on any object you see
is red. Now we turn into the straight avenue of orange trees--prim, deep
green trees, glittering with golden fruit. Here is the one-story,
high-roofed house, with long, high piazzas. There is a high wall,
carefully whitewashed, enclosing a square with one gate, looking like a
garrisoned spot. That must be the Negroes' quarters; for there is a
group of little Negroes at the gate, looking ear