36 SUGAR 



Let me give you a few hints before you follow our 

 leader in this expedition among the fields. Mind how 

 you push the canes asunder to get through, for the 

 leaves have edges that cut like a razor. Keep your 

 gloves on, if you can endure the heat of them. But 

 at any cost to your hands, you must guard your face, 

 especially your eyes, and you must be prepared to find 

 this a difficult task when you are among the fields of 

 full-grown canes. And do not jump in regulation good 

 form, so as to come down on both feet at once ; the 

 slimy banks of the drainage trenches, which you will 

 have to clear, are very slippery, and if both feet come 

 down together and do not get a good grip, you are more 

 than likely to fall back into the muddy water. Whereas, 

 if you give yourself two chances of a foothold, and lose 

 one, you may still manage to shufiie into safety. The 

 navigation canals you will have to cross, to get from 

 field to field, are too wide to jump. Each of you will 

 go across separately in a floater ; be very careful to 

 keep your balance, particularly at the moments when 

 it is shoved off, and when it bumps against the opposite 

 shore. 



As we follow our guide, we see canes in numerous 

 stages of their plantation career, and discover workers 

 engaged in many different kinds of field labour. In 

 one section, men are busy reaping, and piling the cut 

 canes up by the dam-side, ready to be taken to the 

 mill in punts. In a neighbouring field, we emerge 

 into a tangle of canes, and have to make our way very 

 slowly and warily. An intervening trench strikes us 

 as being an expanse of open country, in contrast with 

 the cane thicket, and it is a pleasant change to jump 

 through the air after a long struggle to tunnel through 



