CULTIVATION OF COCHINEAL. 277 



to meet me. At four o'clock we reached Santa Maria, 

 at five the Antigua, and at a quarter past I was in bed. 



The next morning I was still asleep when Seiior 

 Vidaury rode into the courtyard to escort me on my 

 journey. Leaving Romaldi to follow, I was soon 

 mounted ; and emerging from the city, we entered the 

 open plain, shut in by mountains, and cultivated to their 

 base with cochineal. At about a mile's distance we 

 turned in to the hacienda of Seiior Vidaury. In the 

 yard were four oxen grinding sugarcane, and behind 

 was his nopal, or cochineal plantation, one of the largest 

 in the Antigua. The plant is a species of cactus, set out 

 in rows like Indian corn, and, at the time I speak of it, 

 was about four feet high. On every leaf was pinned 

 with a thorn a piece of cane, in the hollow of which 

 were thirty or forty insects. These insects cannot 

 move, but breed, and the young crawl out and fasten 

 upon the leaf ; when they have once fixed they never 

 move ; a light film gathers over them, and as they 

 feed the leaves become mildewed and white. At the 

 end of the dry season some of the leaves are cut off 

 and hung up in a storehouse for seed, the insects are 

 brushed off from the rest and dried, and are then sent 

 abroad to minister to the luxuries and elegances of 

 civilized life, and enliven with their bright colours the 

 salons of London, Paris, and St. Louis in Missouri. 

 The crop is valuable, but uncertain, as an early rain 

 may destroy it ; and sometimes all the workmen of a 

 hacienda are taken away for soldiers at the moment 

 when they are most needed for its culture. The sit- 

 uation was ravishingly beautiful, at the base and under 

 the shade of the Volcano de Agua, and the view was 

 bounded on all sides by mountains of perpetual green ; 

 the morning air was soft and balmy, but pure and 



24 



