Читать книгу Roraima and British Guiana, With a Glance at Bermuda, the West Indies, and the Spanish Main онлайн

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Towards evening, after we had paid a very pleasant visit to Major M—, one of the principal planters in the Island—we drove back to Bassin by the central road, which was straight and flat in comparison with that of the morning. As before, cane and palms surrounded us, but many of the cocoa-nut trees had been robbed of their beauty and were headless; and, as the fresh breeze swept over the land, their bent shafts resembled the bare poles of a stricken ship scudding along through a waving green sea. At the corners of the different plantations by the roadside, were small white-domed buildings like Eastern sepulchres; these were watch houses, necessary to prevent stray passers-by from cutting the juicy cane. A steam plough next claimed our attention, and after that a Moravian[7] Church; then darkness closed in, and before long we were home again.

Another of our drives was to the new “Central Factory,” about which Santa Cruz was then very much disturbed and divided into two factions. By a “Central Factory,” the functions of the cane producer and the sugar-maker are divided, just as those of the wheat farmer and the miller. All the planter has to do is to grow the cane and take it when cut to the nearest dépôt belonging to the “Central Factory,” and then his duty is finished.