October i, 1890.] 
THE TROPIOAL AQRIOULTURfST, 
283 
A boaster in a Trubble ketch bull-dog, monkey 
breeches fit him. 
Dog msssa gib him money for buy bench, dog tek 
it buy bone, and say, Big Massa (the Creator) nebber 
ben mek him for sit down ’pon bench. 
When black man tief, him tief “Quattie” (IJd.), but 
when Buckra tief, him tief whole a estate. 
When fowl drink water, him liftup him hed say ‘‘tank 
God, tank God;” when man drink water, him say nothing. 
There is a comprehensive article on railway extension 
in South America, shewing wonderful progress 
already made in crossing high mountain ranges, 
from which we wish we had space to quote. But 
we cannot help quoting a description of labourers 
at the Diggings : — 
AiVe come now to the sinews of the camp, the la- 
bourer. He is never so happy as when he is grumbling, 
and that he is always ready to do. In the morning, the 
clock is fast ; at night he accuses you of shifting the 
hands and declares that it is slow. He frequently as- 
sures you that he is devoted to your service. All he 
needs is a little encouragement, liberally interprsted, 
“grog.” He is continually assuring you that if you 
can treat him well, that is, give him more than bis 
allowance of food, he will indeed work for you. He 
abounds in honied words, commonly known as “ sweet 
mouth” or “rattle,” and at such times, beware! he is 
fooling you. 
These remarks are intended to apply only to the 
creole labourer, who, after all, is the only one suited to 
this work. As to the others, the coolie and “ Bill” are 
too liable to sickness, and the Chinaman is too smart. 
“ country,” i. e., the Ilarbadian, is too delicate, and the 
Portuguese and Mulatto population are physically unable 
to do the work. Above all, in engaging labourers, 
beware of the “ boots man I” On no consideration 
engage a man who seems at home in his boots, and, 
generally, look for the barefoot man. " Bill” generally 
gives out before his time is done. He takes bis ad- 
vance to his uncle, and comes into the bush utterly 
unprovided with clothing — sometimes without even a 
hammock. He has to subsist on food entirely differ- 
ent from that to which he has been accustomed, and 
the poor feeding alone renders him an easy prey to 
malaria and dysentery. 
It is about his food that the ordinary labourer is 
most troublesome. He is perfectly aware of the amount 
of his allowance, and never wearies of telling you that 
he knows that, though you personally have nothing to 
do with it, the cook is robbing him. When told that 
under the circumstances it will be advisable to take his 
raw victuals and cook them, he will find numberless 
objections to such a course. Many make a regular 
practice of begging, giving one the disagreeable ne- 
cessity of refusing. These few drawbacks excepted, 
they are a happy lot, and generally work well. 
At night when their work is done, and particularly 
when there is a large gang, song after song is sung, and 
the chorus taken up in perfect harmony and uni- 
son. Oertainly the songs are frequently mere repetitions 
and very meaningless, but in the still nights the singing 
is far from unpleasant, and appears to affqrd the per- 
formers infinite delight. The variety of the instru- 
ments is marvellous. Besides concertinas, flageolets, 
violins,gnitars, etc., which they bring with them from 
town, they invent many more. They will rattle a spoon 
on a pudding pan very musically, they make use of the 
familiar comb and piece of thin paper, they whistle 
very fairly, they construct flutes with old bones, violins 
with meat cans, and wonderful to relate, they make 
even violoncellos. 
There is a notice of a Carib-French Dictionary, 
which must be of special interest, as the race has 
almost disappeared. There is an interesting des- 
cription of the Upper Demerara river in which we 
see it stated that a report on this region was made, 
a few years ago, by Mr. C. Barrington Brown. 
The snakes, fireflies and birds of this|region seemto be 
equally beautiful and one bird the Hoatzin, — OpUtho- 
comtts cristatus, is so singular in its formation that it 
is called the repiilebird, just as the Australian kan- 
garoo is regarded, from its struoture, as the reptile 
ahimali 
BLIGHT ON TEA. 
Tea hss not hitherto, as far as we ore aware, 
suffered from blight, which has been the destruction 
of coffee, but from all accounts it appears that it 
is liable to it. Atessrs Jardiiie, Skinner & Co., of 
Calcutta, recently forwarded to the Agricultural Society 
of India some samples of tea leave.s, concerning 
which the Manager of that Company’s Gardens in 
Assam wrote: — “By sample post I send you a tin 
CMitaining samples of tea leaves which are blighted 
by a sort of fungus. It seems to be spreading all over 
the garden", and is not peculiar to low or high land. 
The leaves after a lime get quite brown and black and 
fall off, leaving nothing but the stalks. It seems to be 
a new kind of blight. Coukl you find out from the 
Horticultural or Agricultural Societies what it is and 
what remedy would be of use b ” The Company there- 
fore asked the Society to e.?amine the leaves, and give 
what information it could as to the species of blight 
from which the leaves were suffering. The samples, 
owing to their being packed in tin. arrived unfortunately 
quite spoilt for examination, but, the Society stated 
that the disease appeared to be one which liad 
recently been observed in more than one garden 
in Assam, and seemed to be very destructive. 
As the blight, or fuugus, seems to be new to tea, it 
might be posaible, it remarks, by collecting and 
collating all the existing information about it, to 
learn where and when it originated, and whether it 
appears to be associated with any particular surround- 
ings, soil, age of plant, or other conditions ; and the 
information might also afford some clue to the proper 
method of combatting it. Another correspondent 
wrote to the Society stating that the blight, or some- 
thing like it, had long existed in some gardens in 
Assam without doing any appreciable injury. The 
proposed enquiry and analysis of the soils, &c. of tea 
plants might, in the opinion of the Society, throw 
some light on the subject, and we are glad to learn 
that steps have been taken to secure the services of 
a competent chemist to analyse tea plants, tea soils 
and manures and search generally into the cultivation 
and manufacture of tea. The inquiry once started 
will, says the Society, be the means of collecting and 
aBsigning to its proper place much of the informa- 
tion which different planters have acquired by ex- 
perience, but wPich id not available to the rest of 
the community. The new tea blight referred to is a 
case iu point. There has hitherto been no organised 
inquiry respecting tea cultivation and manufacture, 
and the departure now taken can hardly fail to 
benefit the industry . — Madras Mail, Ang. '27th, 
— — 
BRICK TEA. 
A curious and interesting feature of the Chinese tea 
trade in recent years is the extraordinary growth of 
the brick tea industry. Formerly the “ Bods ” of Thibet 
were the only customers ior the compressed and sourish 
slabs that found their way across fhe frontiers to the 
Chinese dependency, but now the Tartars of Central 
Asia, the Siberians, and the peoples of Eastern Russia 
all demand their raw lea in the shape of slabs, tablets, 
or bricks. Consul Allen, in a report to the Foreign 
Oflice on the commerce of Hankow, recently stated 
that the trade in brick tea “ seems to increase by leaps 
and bounds,” so highly is the leaf in this form appreci- 
ated by the Ru.ssiaii and Siberian connoisseurs. The 
bricks are prepared by machinery latterly, and “the 
brick tea factories, with their tall chimneys, are the 
most striking buildings in the European settlement” at 
Hankow now. The museum at Kew Gardens received 
a couple of samples of this tablet tea early in the 
present year, and the number of the Kew Bulletin last 
issued, contains an interesting, though in some respects 
incomplete, reftjrence to the subject of brick teagenenilly. 
There are two kinds of tablet tea mauufactnred for the 
Siberian and I? us nan markets at Hankow, the large 
and the small, but they differ both iu mannor of pre- 
paration and iu the quality of the leal used. The large 
bricks are made in a very simple way. A quantity of 
comtnon tea dust is placed iu a sort of pudding cloth ei 
