[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

LIFE ON A PLANTATION 3 7

planters, Mr. and Mrs. Ch., and asked them to take
me in, which they agreed to do. Having rented an
old plantation from the French company, they had
had the good fortune to find a regular frame house
ready for them.

After I had moved into my quarters the Resident
returned to Vila, and I remained on the borders of the
wilderness. What followed now was a most un-
satisfactory time of waiting, the first of many similar
periods. Having no servants, I could undertake
nothing independently, and since the planters were
all suffering from lack of hands, I could not hire any
boys. As the natives around the French plantations
at the Canal du Segond are practically exterminated,
I saw hardly any; but at least I got a good insight
into the life on a plantation, such as it was.

With' his land, Mr. Ch. had rented about
thirty boys, with whom he was trying to work the
completely decayed plantation. Many acres were
covered with coffee trees, but owing to the miserable
management of the French company, the planters
had changed continually and the system of planting

. just as often. Every manager had abandoned the
work of his predecessor and begun planting anew on
a different system, so that now there was an immense
tract of land planted which had never yet yielded a
crop. In a short time such intended plantations are
overgrown with bush and reconquered by the wilder-

' “6.353; thus thousands of coffee trees were covered
w1th vines and struggled in vain for light and air. It
may seem incredible that in two weeks, on cleared