238 TRAVELS IN THE CONFEDERATION 



Here and there a beginning has been made in the 

 cultivation of rice, the quality of which has been irre- 

 proachable but the yields discouraging. The country 

 on the whole is not sloping enough and not sufficiently 

 supplied with fresh streams of water to make this crop 

 profitable. Indigo does better, which adapts itself to 

 a barren, dry soil ; but there has been no great progress 

 made in its management. However, it is pretty gen- 

 erally accepted that ioo pounds indigo and more can 

 be produced by the work of a single negro slave, 

 which brings the profit from this article, reckoning the 

 pound at 5 shill. sterling, up to 25 Pd. Sterling, be- 

 sides what the hand must earn in addition. 



On the Mosquito river a few attempts have been 

 made with sugar, but so far its culture has not been 

 found profitable or encouraging enough. The cold 

 north-west winds, which at times blow strongly here, 

 check the growth of this delicate plant, and if they do 

 not kill it, at least they cause the yield of sugar to be 

 not answerable to the labor expended ; and this culture 

 therefore cannot be carried on so advantageously as in 

 the near-by West Indies. Cold winds and weather 

 are not uncommon here, notwithstanding the very 

 southern situation of the country. Mr. Bartram, who 

 in 1765 went through this newly won province by royal 

 commission, + remarks in his journal that on the 3rd of 

 January of that year there was such extraordinary cold 

 at St. Augustin that in one night the soil along the 

 streams was frozen an inch deep, and all the lemon 

 and banana trees were killed. At this time, in March, 

 we had a few such cool days that within doors a fire 

 was very agreeable. In the Governor's garden at- 

 tempts were made at divers times with pineapple and 



