our
Spanish neighbours.

To a man the officers and gentlemen who had come out turned their
attention to agriculture, and many were the experiments tried, and
successfully too. At one estate cotton was growing; at another, where
there was a lot of rich low land easily flooded, great crops of rice
were raised. Here, as I walked round with my father, we passed broad
fields of sugar-cane, and farther on the great crinkled-leaved Indian
corn flourished wonderfully, with its flower tassels, and beautiful
green and then orange-buff ears of hard, sweet, flinty corn.

Then came long talks about the want of more help, and one of the
settlers braved public opinion, and every one began to talk about how
shocking it was for an English gentleman to purchase slaves. But before
many months had passed there was hardly a settler without slave labour,
the principal exception being my father.

It is hard to paint a picture in words, but I should like those who read
this to understand what my home was like when I was about twelve years
old, a great strong healthy boy, with cheeks burned brown by the sun.

Our place began with one low erection, divided by a rough partition into
two--our room and the Morgans'; most of our meals being eaten in the big
rustic porch contrived by Morgan in what he called his spare time, and
over which ran wildly the most beautiful passion-flower I had ever seen.

But then as wood was abundant, and a saw-pit had been erected, a more
pretentious one-floored cottage residence was planned to join on to the
first building, which before long was entirely devoted to the servants;
and we soon had a very charming little home with shingle roof, over
which beautiful creepers literally rioted, and hung down in festoons
from our windows.

Every day seemed to mellow and beautify this place, and the wild garden
dotted with lovely cypresses and flowering shrubs, mingled with every
kind of fruit-tree that my father and Morgan had been able to get
together. Over trellises, and on the house facing south, grape-vines
flourished wonderfully. Peaches were soon in abundance, and such fruits
familiar to English people at home as would bear the climate filled the
garden.

My father's estate extended for a considerable distance, but the greater
part remained as it had been tilled by nature, the want of assistance
confining his efforts to a comparatively small garden; but he used to
say to me, in his quiet, grave way--

"We