LIFE ON A SUGAR PLANTATION.

BARE

ARBADOS, the most easterly of the Lesser Antilles or Caribbean islands, is one of the most highly cultivated spots on the surface of the earth. It is about the size of the Isle of Wight, and has been aptly described as a huge allotment garden, for the fields are not large and there are no fences. The whole island is parcelled out into small estates and still smaller holdings, nearly every acre is cultivated, and, except in the immediate neighbourhood of dwellings, little else is grown besides sugar-cane.

The three most prominent characteristics of Barbados, the objects that meet you at every turn, are coral-rock, sugar-cane, and "coloured" people. The island is girt with coral-reefs and sixsevenths of its whole surface consists of coral-rock, ancient reefs that have been raised from time to time above the sea and now rise in broad terraces or plateaux, tier above tier, to a height of 1,100 feet above the sea-level. It is to the labours of the coral polypes in bygone ages that Barbados owes its great fertility and its present prosperity; for the coral-rock everywhere supplies an excellent soil, a deep red loam on the higher level, and a rich black earth on the lower plains; and it is only in the area which is not covered by this rock that any barren tracts are found.

Sugar is king of Barbados, the whole commerce of the island depends upon the cultivation of sugar-cane; in summer time the island is clothed in a mantle of bright green cane, in crop time the fields are cut and the mills are at work, and every available cart, mule and ox is engaged in drawing the cane from the fields to the mills.

Last but by no means least, as a special growth of Barbados, are the coloured folk, black and brown of various hues. They are the workmen and labourers of the colony, and consequently they form the greater part of the population; by their labour the cane is planted, tended and finally cut; by them, under white superintendence, the sugar and molasses are made, and by them the casks and hogsheads are driven down to the coast. Quashee and his wife and children.

are everywhere, and all of them are wanted when the crop is gathered in.

To this green island let the reader imagine himself transported, and driving out of Bridgetown along one of the white roads that lead to the higher part of the country. The sun is very hot, though it is early in January, and its heat is tempered by the fresh trade wind. We pass a continuous succession of cane-fields, and meet a nearly continuous procession of carts and drays, drawn by mules and oxen, and driven by lively black jarveys who are not too careful in getting out of the way; we pass through many villages or hamlets of the small and airy cabins which are the habitations of the coloured folk, and where the children seem as plentiful as rabbits in a warren. We skirt and cross several of the curious ravines or gullies that traverse the island, and though they are evidently watercourses they seldom have any water in them, so porous is the coral-rock through which the channels are cut. We climb several hills, the steepness of which is mitigated by cuttings through the rock, cuttings that are often picturesquely draped with ferns and festoons of creeping plants. At length we ascend the last slope, and find ourselves on one of the highest plateaux in the island, and in front of the house where the writer spent most of his time in Barbados.

The house itself is a curious domicile, old and weather-beaten, only one storey high, with a covered verandah in front which is reached by a flight of steps. On one side is a garden, full of rosetrees, rather wild and straggling, but blooming luxuriantly in the winter sun. On the other side is the stable yard, overshadowed by the spreading branches of a Barbadian fig-tree, a tree that has rather small leaves and still smaller fruit, hard and uneatable; but in this climate shade is more needed than figs, and the tree was planted for the shade it gives.

In front of the house stands the sturdy stone-built windmill, the motive power of the cane-crushing machinery. Beyond this is the boiling-house, where the sugar is made, while the stalls for the oxen and mules occupy another side of the open space round the mill.

The house and its surroundings may be regarded as a tropical counterpart of an English farmyard; but the agricultural operations, and the people that perform them, are so different from those on an English farm, that there is little to remind one of the latter, except the familiar presence of fowls, turkeys, and guinea-hens.

The estate is not a large one, only 272 acres in extent, yet during half the year no fewer than eighty people are permanently employed upon it. All round the yard and house spread the open cane-fields,

and not a cottage or cabin is in sight. Where, then, do all the people live? The answer to this question will be found by walking through the cane-field to the north of the house; on the further side of this the visitor finds himself on the brink of a vertical precipice, part of the great escarpment in which the coral rock terminates, and which encircles the only rough and rugged portion of the island.

The view from this cliff is exceedingly picturesque; it drops in sheer descent for about 60 feet, and at its foot is an irregular slope formed of large masses of rock which have fallen from the cliff; on this ground the "darkies" have built their little cabins, which are dotted about on and between the huge boulders half-hidden by the broad leaves of plantains and bananas. Here and there rises the bossy, dark-green foliage of a bread-fruit tree, while beyond, in pleasing contrast, lie sloping fields of bright green sugar-cane on either side of an open valley that leads to the sea.

A more pleasant and suitable site for a little hamlet could hardly be imagined; the great cliff affords a certain amount of shade from the Southern sun, while the healthy trade wind can sweep freely into the hollow, the fruit trees afford a supply of wholesome food, and at the foot of the tumbled slope rises a spring of clear and sparkling

water.

We cannot leave the cliff without noting the more distant view which it commands over the north-eastern part of the island. The aspect of this is very different from the other portions, and it is locally known as the Scotland district, because its system of hilly ridges and valleys seemed to some early Scottish colonist to be a miniature representation of the physical features of his native country. Bissex Hill, rising to 966 feet above the sea, fills the middle distance, but over its western shoulder a wider prospect opens of ridge beyond ridge, every slope furrowed by little watercourses that lead into the dividing valleys, the whole enclosed and dominated by the sweep of a bold escarpment of coral rock, which is the continuation of that on which we stand. Beyond the termination of this escarpment, as well as over the top of the nearer hills, spreads the broad plain of the Atlantic Ocean, reflecting the bright blue of the sky and sparkling in the sunshine, except where the floating clouds are mirrored in dark patches on its surface. The ocean ripples into the hazy distance, where the water seems to mingle with the clouds, and it is only by looking along the deep vista of the cloud-speckled sky that one can realise how great that distance really is.

But it is time we returned to the yard where the coopers are busy putting together the hogsheads which are to hold the sugar and

molasses. The staves of the barrels are returned to the estate, and after being cleaned are made up again into hogsheads every year; great is the noise, therefore, for several weeks before the crop is cut, as the hammers ring with a rhythmic beat on the hoops that are driven round the barrels.

The two great annual events on a sugar-plantation are the starting of the mill and the finishing of the cane-harvest. The first canes are generally cut and carried to the mill in February, and the last canes are not cut till June or July, for, except in the few cases where steam machinery is used, the planter is dependent on the wind, and must not cut much more cane in one day than he thinks he can grind in the next; if the wind fails him operations are stopped, and even if he starts the mill in February, before the canes are quite ripe, he may not be able to finish till July or August, if the estate be large and the season unfavourable.

Just before "crop time," fodder generally becomes scarce, and some of the smaller growers cut some of their unripe canes, which they sell to the estate managers at sixpence a hundred, while in their place some other crop, generally sweet potatoes, is planted. The canes thus bought are used for two purposes-a piece of the stalk about a foot and a half long is lopped off from each, and these are planted in the rotation fields, new leaves and cane stalks quickly springing from the old hulm; the juicy tops and long green leaves are given to the mules and oxen, who munch them eagerly.

No fewer than forty oxen and twenty-four mules are required for the work of this estate. The oxen are not nearly so large as English animals; they are, indeed, a special breed, with small heads and long well-shaped muzzles, soft quiet eyes, and a patient good-tempered aspect; even the bulls submitting quietly to be harnessed. The yoke consists of a U-shaped piece of iron or wood like a large croquet hoop, and the prongs of this fasten into a bar of wood, which goes over the neck behind the horns, and is linked to the corresponding bar on the companion ox, the pair of animals being thus obliged to move in unison. Six oxen are generally yoked into one cart, and the carter walks by their side, turning and guiding them by strokes of the long whip he carries, and encouraging each animal by his own. proper name. When the last load is drawn for the day, the creatures are taken out and wait quietly while the bar is unfastened and the hoop turned round, then they walk off sedately to their stalls, where a good meal of cane-tops awaits them.

Crop time is not only a busy time but a "good time," as our American cousins say, both for man and beast, and the darkies are

always glad when the master decides to start the mill. Then the labourers know that they will obtain continuous employment and can earn good wages; for not only the men, but most of the women, and nearly all the children who are more than twelve years old, are employed in the work. They generally have permission to eat what cane they like while they are at work, and are often allowed cupfulls of the boiled liquor that is being made into sugar. This liquor and even the raw cane-juice is very fattening, the men get stronger and the women and children get plump, the mules and oxen put on flesh, for they too feed on the leaves and shoots of the cane.

It is like a prolonged harvest-time at home, but with more of the old fashioned freedom and mirth than is seen in modern England. Of course there are good seasons and bad seasons, as elsewhere, but it it seldom that very much cane is spoiled.

The mill is an ordinary windmill, which works three rollers revolving against one another in such a fashion that the juice falls into a trench below, while the squeezed cane is pushed out on one side; this crushed refuse is called trash and is used as fuel in the boilinghouse...

Let me try to describe the scene in the yard during the crop time, and on a good day, when there is a brisk wind to turn the mill and a bright sun to dry the trash. The teams of oxen and mules are constantly bringing up carts laden with fresh canes, which are tipped out on to the ground round the mill; one set of men carry canes to the rollers, where two men are engaged in thrusting them in between the crushers, and another set of men take away the trash. This trash is spread out over every available space in the yard, which is generally laid out on a slope, so that the rain may run off easily.

A small army of girls and boys is engaged in this spreading of the trash, and in constantly turning it over with their feet, so that it dries in the sun and wind, and when any is dry it is gathered into heaps from which the boiling-house is supplied with fuel. The children laugh and chatter at their work, and would put more power into their tongues than their feet if they were not kept in order by the overseer, who is generally an oldish "nigger" specially told off for the duty of superintending the children. The troop of little brown and black legs moving in line amidst the yellow-white carpet of cane-trash is a picturesque sight in its way, though not perhaps so pleasing as a view of the "laughing girls" who "trod the vats of Luna."

On this estate it was considered a good day's work if four hogsheads of sugar were made in the day; but more could sometimes have been made with larger boilers, for occasionally the mill would be