He Wanted Me To Have Eau
Sucree More Kindly Than Ever, And When I Rose, Intending To Bow
Myself Off And Go, Geese Or No Geese, Back To The Eclaireur, He
Would Not Let Me Go.
I must see the plantation, toute la
plantation.
So presently all three of us go out and thoroughly do
the plantation, the most well-ordered, well-cultivated plantation I
have ever seen, and a very noble monument to the knowledge and
industry of the planter. For two hot hours these two perfect
gentlemen showed me over it. I also behaved well, for petticoats,
great as they are, do not prevent insects and catawumpuses of sorts
walking up one's ankles and feeding on one as one stands on the long
grass which has been most wisely cut and laid round the young trees
for mulching. This plantation is of great extent on the hill-sides
and in the valley bottom, portions of it are just coming into
bearing. The whole is kept as perfectly as a garden, amazing as the
work of one white man with only a staff of unskilled native
labourers - at present only eighty of them. The coffee planted is of
three kinds, the Elephant berry, the Arabian, and the San Thome.
During our inspection, we only had one serious misunderstanding,
which arose from my seeing for the first time in my life tree-ferns
growing in the Ogowe. There were three of them, evidently carefully
taken care of, among some coffee plants.
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