114! STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



The husk has much of the flavor of the kernel ; an infusion 

 is made with it which the slaves drink. Coffee plantations 

 have usually a pleasing garden-like and picturesque appearance : 

 none more conspicuously so than that on which I had to stop. 

 It belonged to a Dutchman ; every thing appeared in the 

 greatest order ; the dwelling-house, an elegant brick mansion, 

 stood in th,e midst of a garden, which the occupier took the 

 greatest delight in; even the negro cottages were built on 

 brick foundations, neatly boarded and covered in with shingles. 

 Many grey headed negroes worn with age and labor, were 

 inmates of these comfortable abodes; they had retired from 

 the busy scenes of life to take care of their poultry, while 

 their sons and daughters wielded the shovel and the hoe. Be- 

 fore these huts were several groupes, consisting of between 

 forty and fifty negro children, who with sportive playfulness, 

 were passing the time away until the dinner bell should bring 

 their parents from the fields. 

 . i>. . 



Well pleased with this scene, I could not resist the worthy 

 proprietor's invitation of dining with him, though we had 

 never seen each other before ; our segars and sangaree pre- 

 vious to dinner, gave to conversation, the appearance of a 

 long standing friendship: we interchanged our ideas respect- 

 ing the slave trade and the treatment of negroes, though he 

 was of the old school, he agreed with me. I compli- 

 mented him on the order and arrangement of his negro 



