428 
DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap.XXV.-B.P. 
hottest I have ever felt in the West Indies, and even 
the natives were compelled to put a cool plantain leaf 
on their heads, an example I was very glad to follow, 
as the only means of averting a sunstroke. 
Opposite Mahogany Creek, we stopped at a very 
thriving plantation, and completely loaded the canoe 
with cassava, plantains, and sugar-cane, for the use 
and benefit of the families of my men, who, with 
characteristic independence, hardly thought it worth 
while to ask my permission. The canoe must have 
presented a very curious appearance to any one from 
the bank. She was nearly level with the water, lined 
round with uprights of sugar-cane, and filled inside 
with plantains; four naked black men, each with a 
great green leaf on his head, paddled forward, while a 
gigantic steersman, in the same costume, sat right aft; 
a weary-looking white traveller, almost fainting with 
the heat, perched on the top of the plantains, his head 
crowned with leaves and a large cotton umbrella, 
completed this moving picture. 
In this way the rest of the voyage to Blewfields 
was performed; and through the folly of pulling down 
the chowpa was only rendered endurable by the con¬ 
sumption of no end of sugar-cane, supplied to me by 
the aforesaid coxswain, who sliced olf the outer skin 
most dexterously with his machete, and then split up 
the inside into strips about the size of one’s finger, 
easy to chew. It is astonishing what an enormous 
quantity of sugar-cane disappears; I am afraid to say 
how many yards I got through under the trying ex¬ 
posure of this day, but the cane consumed, if put to- 
