PART II

IME was when the West Indi

Τ an planter received twenty

dollars a ton for his unrefined sugar. This was the Golden Age of the Caribbean islands. To this prosperous era all of them owe whatever agricultural development they now possess and in Cuba only has there been any appreciable extension of cultivable lands. Elsewhere has existed merely the use or the reclamation of the original plantations opened by European and American settlers during the first half of the last century and the last of the preceding one.

Slavery played an indispensable and terrible part in the conquering of the primeval tropical jungle. Even the improved methods and machinery of the present day do not make this task an easy one. Minddirected muscle still has the first place in combating certain forces of nature. In Jamaica, Hayti, Santo Domingo, and in all the lesser islands the limits of cultivation have changed but slightly in a hundred years; in many of them nature has once more retaken the domain wrestled from her by the labor and lives of thousands of African slaves.

In the old days, during the flourishing period of the sugar industry, a vast work was accomplished. Roads were cut, thousands of acres were cleared and planted, great houses, palatial and grand even now, were built in the midst of *Copyright, 1904, by Maurice Baldwin.

beautiful parks and gardens-impressive memorials of a time when the planters enjoyed an almost feudal magnificence and style of living.

a

On the sea-road from Brownstown to Montego Bay-the western port of the island-immense fields of sugar cane are passed. They lie in the valleys and look like overflowing streams of pale-green water, billowing in the breeze with sibilant murmur sibilant murmur as of surf. These sugar estates will prove one of the most interesting features of the island industry to the traveler. Nearly all of them are ancient, and the fertility of the soil is evidenced by the fact that for nearly two hundred years, in many instances, the land has given an uninterrupted harvest of succulent cane. Orange Valley estate, not far from Dry Harbor, is typical of most of the working estates.

The land was cleared of the jungle growth of mango and laurel and banyan with machete and fire. It is said in Jamaica that the trees grow so fast that they pull themselves up by the roots, but no ordinary plow could break through the matted tangle that thickly covers the earth. Powerful oxen and strong men are needed to prepare the ground. Women follow after the plow and gather up the roots, which are burned. The canes are set from slips and a field, once made, is good for the next hundred years.

The harvest is a continuous one

men

IN THE CANE FIELDS.

and the acreage of cane is generally proportioned to the capacity of the mill. At daybreak, from the tiny thatched huts that are scattered over every plantation, the laborers, and women, gather in the court of the ingenio. The overseer has the title of Busha, an African word signifying master. He gives his orders to the headmen, who superintend different portions of the work. All day long in the humid heat of the fields the stolid creatures labor. It is difficult to get the present-day negro to work more than two or three days a week, but in the old slave days the lash followed the furrows from dawn to sunset, day after day. May not the proverbial laziness of the negro be merely an hereditary result of the terrible and exhausting labor of his enslaved forefathers, whose poor brains and bodies knew but one wish to rest! Transmitted weariness and nothing else-who knows?

The canes are cut with the machete the most common tool in the tropics a kind of cutlass with a heavy iron or steel blade and a wooden handle. Carts convey the juicy stalks to the grinding house, and. beneath huge rollers the juice is expressed, running in palegreen streams to the boiling vats. Another corps of men attend to this department. The sap is boiled in a succession of great copper vats, requiring constant stirring and skimming. Nothing is lost of the product after it is brought from the fields. The stalks pressed dry are used for fuel, the ashes for fertilizer or soap, the skimmings and molasses of the sugar vats furnish the material from which Jamaica rum is made, and the manufacture of this article, as far as the planter is concerned, is the economic accompaniment of sugar making.

The power for running the machinery is about equally divided between steam and water, the large number of rapidly flowing rivers. rendering this last a still advantageous source of power. On one estate-perhaps the most interesting which the traveler sees on the way to Montego Bay-the whole mechanical evolution of the sugar industry may be followed. The

early English and Spanish colonists had no steam to work by and the machinery required for the use of water was more elaborate than they could at that time command. They therefore built what in Jamaica are called breeze mills-massive structures of cement and stone, whose clumsy machinery was run by the wind. Afterward came the turnmills, in which power could be obtained without irregularity by the use of mules and horses. Later came the water wheels, and more recently steam was put into use. On the estate mentioned, not far from Falmouth, these various sources of power and the structures in which they were used are still standing.

After the sugar and rum are made they are put into hogsheads and puncheons and taken to the seashore for shipment. These caravans of men and oxen form interesting objects to the traveler.

At all of the estates at which one stops there is a welcome from the planter and his family that impresses him with

the frank cordiality and hospitality of the people. Tea and cakes and fruit are always presented, and these expatriated English men and women seem to enjoy seeing persons from the outside world. Full of comfort and pastoral

contentment, as most of their lives appear to be, one can understand that they must sometimes wish for the more active life of the north.

The driver has meanwhile been taking us through rapidly changing scenery. We are now passing along the plain of the northwest coast. The road follows close to the sea, and through breaks in the girdle of cocoanut palms may be seen the fishermen in their canoes; narrow shells, made of fire-hollowed cotton-tree logs. These little canoes are similar in most respects to the dugout canoes of all savage islanders the world over. Both oars and paddles are used in their propulsion, and considerable skill is required in keeping them right side up; they tip over if one sneezes.

Just before arriving at Falmouth the road crosses several pretty rivers. The bridges are always picturesque bits in the landscapes, and at evening they are the favorite rendezvous of dusky lovers. They are

last one. These three men she had murdered with her own fair hands in the vast rooms of her palace by the sea. A faithful slave of her last husband, fearful for his master's life, is said to have strangled this female Bluebeard. The richest and one of the most powerful women in the island, law seemed unable to bring her to account.

This strange house, with its four wings, in which are twelve vast rooms, floored and furnished in solid mahogany; with its fifty-two doors, carved, and ornamented with heavy. brass finishings; with its three hundred and sixty-five windows that seem to watch the landscape with ruthless eyes; this weird memorial of awful maniacai crime, long past, but not forgotten, is one of the sights in Jamaica that recall the lawless period of early times when life and property were held only by superior force. From a time-dimmed portrait in the great salon the visitor can still feel the fascination of Mrs. Palmer's strange beauty, and guess at her subtle cruelty from the dark eyes and the heavy red lips.

Nineteen miles further on is Montego Bay. It is second in size to Kingston, lying at the western extremity of the island. It is a beautiful city, has a famous harbor and is the western terminus of the Jamaica railway. Oliver Optic and other writers have found here much historical material for their stories of pirate life.

Everywhere along the along the streets grows the omnipresent cocoanut palm, and in the walled gardens of the houses blossom a riot of tropical flowers, hibiscus, cape-jessamine, roses and lilies of every variety. To enumerate the flowers that beautify the island would take more knowledge and space than we have at

These tropical towns have a surprisingly good municipal government. There are always excellent water works, lighting stations, boards of health, sanitary and police service. Montego has several fine buildings, among them the Court House, market, and several attractive church edifices.

The oldest church in the city is the Parish Church of England, the walls of which bear tableted records of past generations of men and women of astonishing nobility of life and character, if the somewhat florid memorials may be credited. There is one beautiful piece of statuary by Chantry and another by Bacon. The famous Mrs. Palmer, with commendable foresight, made her will every time she killed a husband, and when her estate was probated after