one of the latter, except the familiar pres ence of fowls, turkeys, and guinea-hens.

To this green island let the reader imagine himself transported, and driving out of Bridgetown along one of the white roads that lead to the higher part of the country. The sun is very hot, though it is early in January, and its heat is tempered by the fresh trade wind. We pass a continuous succession of cane-fields, and meet a nearly continuous procession of carts and drays, drawn by mules and oxen, and driven by lively black jarveys who are not too careful in getting out of the way; we pass through many villages or hamlets of the small and airy cabins which are the habitations of the colored folk, and where the children seem as plentiful as rabbits in a warren. We skirt and cross several of the curious ravines or gullies that traverse the island, and though they are evidently watercourses they seldom have any water in them, so porous is the coral rock through which the channels are cut. We climb several hills, the steepness of which is mitigated by cuttings through the rock, cuttings that are often picturesquely draped with ferns and festoons of creeping plants. At length we ascend the last slope, and find ourselves on one of the highest plateaux in the island, and in front of the house where the writer spent most of his time in Barbados.

The house itself is a curious domicile, old and weather-beaten, only one story high, with a covered verandah in front, which is reached by a flight of steps. On one side is a garden, full of rose-trees, rather wild and straggling, but blooming luxuriantly in the winter sun. On the other side is the stable yard, overshadowed by the spreading branches of a Barbadian fig-tree, a tree that has rather small leaves and still smaller fruit, hard and uneatable; but in this climate shade is more needed than figs, and the tree was planted for the shade it gives.

In front of the house stands the sturdy, stone-built windmill, the motive power of the cane-crushing machinery. Beyond this is the boiling-house, where the sugar is made, while the stalls for the oxen and mules occupy another side of the open space round the mill.

The house and its surroundings may be regarded as a tropical counterpart of an English farmyard; but the agricultural operations, and the people that perform them, are so different from those on an

The estate is not a large one, only two hundred and seventy-two acres in extent, yet during half the year no fewer than eighty people are permanently employed upon it. All round the yard and house spread the open cane-fields, and not a cottage or cabin is in sight. Where, then, do all the people live? The answer to this question will be found by walking through the cane-field to the north of the house; on the further side of this the visitor finds himself on the brink of a vertical precipice, part of the great escarpment in which the coral rock terminates, and which encircles the only rough and rugged portion of the island.

The view from this cliff is exceedingly picturesque; it drops in sheer descent for about sixty feet, and at its foot is an irregular slope formed of large masses of rock which have fallen from the cliff; on this ground the "darkies" have built their little cabins, which are dotted about on and between the huge boulders half hidden by the broad leaves of plantains and bananas. Here and there rises the bossy, dark green foliage of a bread-fruit tree, while beyond, in pleasing contrast, lie sloping fields of bright green sugarcane on either side of an open valley that leads to the sea.

A more pleasant and suitable site for a little hamlet could hardly be imagined; the great cliff affords a certain amount of shade from the southern sun, while the healthy trade wind can sweep freely into the hollow, the fruit trees afford a supply of wholesome food, and at the foot of the tumbled slope rises a spring of clear and sparkling water.

We cannot leave the cliff without noting the more distant view which it commands over the north-eastern part of the island. The aspect of this is very different from the other portions, and it is locally known as the Scotland district, because its system of hilly ridges and valleys seemed to some early Scottish colonist to be a miniature representation of the physical fea tures of his native country. Bissex Hill, rising to nine hundred and sixty-six feet above the sea, fills the middle distance, but over its western shoulder a wider prospect opens of ridge beyond ridge, every slope furrowed by little watercourses that lead into the dividing valleys, the whole enclosed and dominated by the sweep of a bold escarpment of coral rock, which is the continuation of that on which we stand. Beyond the termination of this

the crushers, and another set of men take away the trash. This trash is spread out over every available space in the yard, which is generally laid out on a slope, so that the rain may run off easily.

A small army of girls and boys is engaged in this spreading of the trash, and in constantly turning it over with their feet, so that it dries in the sun and wind, and when any is dry it is gathered into heaps from which the boiling-house is supplied with fuel. The children laugh and chatter at their work, and would put more power into their tongues than their feet if they were not kept in order by the overseer, who is generally an oldish "nigger specially told off for the duty of superintending the children. The troop of little brown and black legs moving in line amidst the yellow-white carpet of cane trash is a picturesque sight in its way, though not perhaps so pleasing as a view of the " laughing girls" who "trod the vats of Luna."

On this estate it was considered a good day's work if four hogsheads of sugar were made in the day; but more could sometimes have been made with larger boilers, for occasionally the mill would be obliged to be stopped because the receivers and boilers were full of liquor. So the work goes on as long as the daylight lasts, and even when the last load is drawn for the day, and the throng of workers have gone to their homes, a few remain to feed the mill with canes; the air still thrills with the beat and hum of the mill-sails, and is redolent with the peculiar acidsweet scent of the crushed cane.

Sometimes, when the heaps of cane have accumulated unduly, and the wind has not wholly died away as night comes on, the mill is kept going far into the night in order to make up for lost time, and, if there be a bright moon, the scene is weird and curious. Tropical moonlight is very different from the dim sort of moonshine which we generally have in misty England; it is a bright but soft white light, throwing up all the features of the landscape with sharply defined lights and shades, as in a photograph. The arms of the slowly revolving mill, the heaps of canes, and the coral paved yard, across which the shadows of the millsails fit in slow succession, are all as white as if they were strewn with freshly fallen snow.

The wind is light and all is quiet, save for the low whirr of the mill-sails, the belllike notes of the whistling frogs, and the droning chant of the men at the mill

house, who generally sing in this fashion as they feed the rollers with fresh canes. So the work goes on till the boilers are full and the stock of cut cane is sufficiently reduced.

At the end of the season, when the final load of canes is brought up to the yard, the people arrange for a merry-making, accompanying the cart with all the musical instruments they can muster, and making as much noise as they can. Mr. Chester thus describes the proceedings:* "A kind of harvest home takes place at the end of the crop gathering upon each es tate. A cart laden with the last canes is drawn by mules decorated with ribbons, and attended by a crowd of laborers, the principal women being attired in white muslin. The mill and other estate buildings are gay with colored kerchiefs, which do duty as flags. Some ancient negro is put forward to make a speech to the planter, which he often does with consid. erable humor and address; then the planter replies, and a glass of falerum, a beverage compounded of rum, lime-juice, and syrup, is handed round to each. Dancing then begins, and is carried on to a late hour to the sound of fiddles and tambourine. Sometimes the proceedings are varied by the introduction of a 'trash. man,' ie., a figure stuffed with cane-trash, and tied on the back of a mule, which is finally let loose and gallops about with his incongruous burden, to the delight of the spectators.'

They are a merry and light-hearted crew, these black and brown folk, and long may they continue so.

And what becomes of all the sugar and molasses that are the ultimate results of this expenditure of time, labor, and money? To my surprise, I found that comparatively little of the sugar comes to England, the greater part of it is bought up for the American market partly because it is a nearer market, but chiefly because the American merchants have a better system of payment than the English have. The planters prefer selling to Americans be cause the sugar is sold in the island and paid for at once. The American merchants send orders to their agents that they will buy under such and such a price, so that the seller knows exactly what he will get for each consignment, for the price is settled in the Bridgetown

market.

The sugar sent to England is not sold in Bridgetown; the planter bands it over

• Transatlantic Sketches, by G. J. Chester. 1869.

to a Barbadian merchant, who only gives him an advance of so much per hogshead. The merchant then ships and sells the sugar by auction in England, and at the end of ten or twelve months a bill is sent to the planter giving an accourt of the sale, with charges for freight, commission, etc., these being sometimes so great that the balance is against the planter instead of in his favor.

I could not ascertain that there was any good reason why the English sugar merchants should not adopt the same plan as the American. The actual reason is probably that the merchants established in Barbados discourage the plan because they act as middlemen and get the extra profit which the planter ought to receive. The control exercised by these local firms over many of the estates has very much to do with the depreciation in the value of the estates. Money has often been advanced by the merchant firms on the condition that the sugar made on the estate should be shipped through them, and the planter then finds that the charge for freight is about twice as much as he would have paid through other agents.

Nearly all the best sugar goes to America, in the state of uncrystallized (muscovado) sugar, while most of that sent to England is crystallized vacuum-pan sugar, and some of it is of inferior quality, and sometimes colored with substances which are more or less deleterious; but recently more muscovado has been sent.

A large number of the estates in Barbados are owned by proprietors who reside in England, and if these proprietors would enquire into the system of selling their sugar, and insist on the American plan, or some modification of it, they would certainly reap the benefit and enhance the value of their estates. A case came to my knowledge in which an English proprietor did so act; he suspected that he was not receiving a due profit, and, being a man of energy, he went over to the island and found that his estate was in debt to a certain firm, though not to a very large amount. He interviewed the firm, paid the debt, and informed them that his connection with them would thenceforth cease. He took over the management of the estate, residing partly in England and partly in Barbados, and he has his own selling-agent in Liverpool, who receives a fair and proper commission on the sugar sold. The consequence is that his income is very largely increased, and I was informed that the sugar made on his estate fetched the highest price

obtained for the article in the English market during 1887. A. J. JUKES-BROWNE.

From Chambers' Journal.

A CHINESE WEDDING.

AN American lady resident in Shanghai sends us the following account of a Chinese wedding which she was lately invited to attend.

In the American settlement Hong-kew, to reach which you are obliged to cross a river known as Soo-chow Creek, there is a small, neat American Episcopal church, which is cared for by a Christianized Chi. nese clergyman, the Rev. Mr. Yen, and here the wedding took place. According to Chinese custom, the bridal procession was formed at the bride's house. First, there are a number of boys who are hired to walk ahead, carrying red banners fastened to long poles; then come the musi cians, some playing wind instruments much resembling in sound Scotch bagpipes; others scraping elongated fiddles; others thumping gongs of varied sizes and discordant tones; while some are beating hollow pieces of bamboo, which give forth a dull, clattering sound. The whole cannot be said to harmonize, but gives out a conglomeration of disconnected sounds rather like a badly rehearsed toy symphony, but altogether delightful to the native ear. Apropos of music, the Chinaman regards the foreigner as far superior to him in civilization and in business, but firmly believes that in the one subject of music he is the foreigner's superior-in fact, that he leads the world! After the band, come more boys carrying large red parasols, with long red and gold fringe; these parasols are on sticks ten feet long; then more boys with red banners, which bear Chinese characters in gold on either side expressing all sorts of complimentary things to the bride. Then more parasolbearers; and after all this comes the bridal chair, which is a most magnificent affair. This ancient mode of locomotion will bear close description. It is a large structure about six feet high, borne on two long, lancewood poles or shafts, and carried by four men, two in front and two behind. As weddings are not very frequent in a Chinese family, it is hardly to be supposed that the chair belongs to the bride. It is almost invariably hired for the occasion and at an enormous expense, sometimes as much as thirty or forty taelsa tael