664 



THE TROPICAL WOULD. 



tbey grow, and their glittering foliage contrasts strikingly with their bright beiTies, 

 One often passes, however, coffee plantations which look ragged and thin ; and in this 

 case the trees are either suffering from the peculiar insect so injurious to them, (a kind 

 of tinea,) or have run out and become exhausted. The ordinary roads on the coffee 

 plantations are carried straight up the side of the hills, between the lines of the shrubs, 

 gullied by every rain, and offering besides so steep an ascent that even with eight or 

 ten oxen it is often impossible to drive the clumsy, old-fashioned cart up the slope, and 

 the negroes are obliged to bring a great part of the harvest down on their heads. They 

 are often seen bringing enormous bundles on their heads down almost vertical slopes." 



Agassiz, however, describes one plantation which he visited which appears to be a 

 model : " On Senhor Lage's estate all these old roads are abandoned, except where 

 they are planted here and there with alleys of orange-trees for the benefit of the 

 negroes ; and he has substituted for them winding roads in the sides of the hill, with a 

 very gradual ascent, so that light carts dragged by a single mule can transport all the 

 harvest from the summit of the plantation to the drying-ground. It was the harvesting 

 season, and the sight was a very pretty one. The negroes, men and women, were 

 scattered about the plantations, with broad shallow trays, made of plaited grass or 

 bamboo, over their shoulders, and supported at their waists. Into these they were 

 gathering the coffee, some of the berries being brilliantly red, some already beginning 

 to dry and turn brown ; while here and there was a green one not yet quite ripe but 

 soon to ripen in the scorching sun. Little black children were sitting on the ground, 

 and gathering what fell under the bushes, singing at their work a monotonous but 

 rather pretty snatch of song, in which some took the first and others the second, 

 making a not inharmonious music. As their baskets were filled they came to the 

 administrator to receive a little metal ticket on which the amount of their work was 

 marked. A task is allotted to each one — so much to a full-grown man, so much to a 

 woman with young children, so much to a child — and each one is paid for whatever 

 he may do over and above it. The requisition is a very moderate one, so that the 

 industrious have an opportunity of making a little money independently. At night 

 they all present their tickets, and are paid on the spot for any extra work. From the 

 harvesting-ground we followed the carts down to the place where their burden is 

 deposited. On their return from the plantation the negroes divide the day's harvest, 

 and dispose it in little mounds on the drying-ground, which is paved in a dazzling 

 white cement, from the glare of which the eye turns wearily away, longing for a green 

 spot on which to rest. When pretty equally dried, the coffee is spread out in thin 

 even layers over the whole enclosure, where it is baked in the sun for the last time. 

 It is then hulled by a very simple machine, in use on almost all the fazendas, and the 

 process is complete. 



" The coffee plantations cover all the hill-sides for miles around. The seed is 

 planted in nurseries especially prepared, where it undergoes its first year's growth. It 

 is then transplanted to its permanent home, and begins to bear in about three years, 

 the first crop being a very light one. From that time forward, under good care and 

 with favorable soil, it will continue to bear, and even to yield two crops or more 

 annually for thirty years in succession. At that time the shrubs and the soil are alike 

 exhausted, and according to the custom of the country the fazendeiro cuts down a new 

 forest and begins a new plantation, completely abandoning his old one, without a 



