s of
age, and possesses a fine head, a handsome face, and piercing black
eyes. He is of small body, and his lower limbs are so withered as to
be entirely useless; so he sits with them curled up in a low, broad
basket, in which he is daily brought to the spot, locomotion in his
case being out of the question. He wears the cleanest of linen, and
his faultless cuffs and ruffled shirt-bosom are decked with solid gold
studs. He is bareheaded, but his thick black hair is carefully
dressed, and parted with mathematical precision in the middle. He
wears neither coat nor vest, but his lower garments are neatly adapted
to his deformity, and are of broadcloth. This man does not utter a
word, but extends his hand pleasantly, with an appealing look from his
handsome eyes, which often elicits a silver real from the passer-by.
We acknowledge to having been thus influenced more than once, in our
morning walks, by a sympathy which it would be difficult to analyze.
We had seen a colored dude selling canes at Nassau, but a dude
mendicant, and a cripple at that, was a physical anomaly.

CHAPTER XIII.

Introduction of Sugar-Cane. -- Sugar Plantations. -- Mode of
Manufacture. -- Slaves on the Plantations. -- African
Amusements. -- The Grinding Season. -- The Coffee
Plantations. -- A Floral Paradise. -- Refugees from St.
Domingo. -- Interesting Experiments with a Mimosa. -- Three
Staple Productions of Cuba. -- Raising Coffee and Tobacco. --
Best Soils for the Tobacco. -- Agricultural Possibilities. --
The Cuban Fire-Fly. -- A Much-Dreaded Insect. -- The Ceiba
Tree. -- About Horses and Oxen.

The first sugar plantation established in Cuba was in 1595, nearly
three hundred years since. These plantations are the least attractive
in external appearance, but the most profitable pecuniarily, of all
agricultural investments in the tropics, though at the present writing
there is a depression in prices of sugar which has brought about a
serious complication of affairs. The markets of the world have become
glutted with the article, owing to the enormous over-production in
Europe from the beet. The plantations devoted to the raising of the
sugar-cane in Cuba spread out their extensive fields, covered with the
corn-like stalks, without any relief to the eye, though here and there
the graceful feathery branches of the palm are seen. The fields are
divided off into squares of three