Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1883-05-18
Cuban Sugar Plantation.

Seen at n little distance, a Cuban su-
gar farm is n pretty and picturesque
sight. 1t is placed usually on some
broad stretch of land. rising and drop
ping in graceful curves. Pleasant groves
of trees. glades of woodland, and far
mountains, suffused in poetic blue haze,
lend a lovely general effect to the pict-
ure. On one of the central curves rises
the planters home. 1t is often Chi
nese puzzle of architecture, with no end
to projecting points and piazza work,
covered with lattices so as TO let in the
breeze while it keeps out the heat, and
so lined with high colors of red or blue
that in the distance it often looks like Il
great toy box. A little way from this
dwelling is solid beam. set firmly in
masonry and supporting the plantation
bell. Further away still is the vast mass
of mixed-up buildings that make
the heaps of crushed dry cane
which is used as fuel for the
boiler. Then grouped at various dis
tances from this plantation center are
the rough mud and lath houses of the
negro hands in all stages of architect
ural decreptitude. Beyond the eve
lights on the cane-fields, if one may use
that term for what is rather vast
prairie of cane. 1t is peculiarly hard to
de justice to the beauty of one of these
sugar-cane oceans, its surface breaking
into green waves under the wind, its
solid mass of verdure still further keep
ing up the watery effect, and its re-
moter bounds reaching far away until
they almost touch the horizon. Dot
this scene with stately palms lifting
their tufted heads sixty feet high, with
moving figures of horsemen and toiling
negroes, with frameworks of loaded
cane drawn by four-yoked cattle, and
the spectacle, seen from a distance
where detail is lost, charms the eye with
pastoral loneliness.
Bot with nearer vision, when the out
line is lost and details are brought to
clearer Wow, one finds grim realities of
thriftlessness. Everything seems bat
tered, and worn, and weather-stained.
There is a prevailing air of unthrift and
careiessness pervading the place. The
trim orchards, the clean yards and neat
gardens that go with wealth in temper
ate zones have no place here. The
sugar-mill IS rough and implanted, its
machinery rusty and the broken cane
trodoen under foot gives it barn-yard
semblance. Even the planters own
dwelling, with its once fiery paint. has
washed-out and dilapidated look
which its interior often confirms. Worst
of all are the half-wrecked homes of the
negro hands, with the mud falling from
yawning cracks, the timbers decayed
or broken, and their outward and in
ward aspect rivalling the mud huts of
squalid Ireland Among these poor
dwellings wander frowsy and fierce
dogs, half-naked black women and en-
tirely naked black children of both
sexes. 1t seems, looking at one OF
these dusky communities of the Cuban
plantation, as though some degraded
tribe of Central Africa had been taken
up and dumped. bodily into one of
the dirty Irish villages of County
Mayo or Galway. OF course there are
plantations and plantations in Cuba,
and to many of the better class, no
doubt, this description does injustice.
But in the large majority of those have
seen most of Its salient points will be
recognized.-Cor. NJ Y. Evening Post.