n engaged in a
war dance. It is astonishing to witness to what a degree of excitement
this negro drummer will work himself up, often fairly frothing at the
mouth. A buxom wench and her mate step forward and perform a wild,
sensuous combination of movements, a sort of negro can-can, like those
dancing girls one sees in India, striving to express sentiments of
love, jealousy, and passion by their pantomime, though these negroes
are far less refined in their gestures. When these two are exhausted,
others take their place, with very similar movements. The same
drummer labors all the while, perspiring copiously, and seeming to get
his full share of satisfaction out of the queer performance. This is
almost their only amusement, though the Chinese coolies who have been
distributed upon the plantations have taught the negroes some of their
queer games, one, particularly, resembling dominoes. The author saw a
set of dominoes made out of native ebony wood by an African slave,
which were of finer finish than machinery turns out, delicately inlaid
with ivory from alligators' teeth, indicating the points upon each
piece. We were told that the only tool the maker had with which to
execute his delicate task was a rude jack-knife. We have said that the
negroes find in the singular dance referred to their one amusement,
but they sometimes engage among themselves in a game of ball, after a
fashion all their own, which it would drive a Yankee base-ball player
frantic to attempt to analyze.

The sugar-cane yields but one crop in a year. There are several
varieties, but the Otaheitan seems to be the most generally
cultivated. Between the time when enough of the cane is ripe to
warrant the getting-up of steam at the grinding-mill and the time when
the heat and the rain spoil its qualities, all the sugar for the
season must be made; hence the necessity for great industry on the
large estates. In Louisiana the grinding season lasts but about eight
weeks. In Cuba it continues four months. In analyzing the sugar
produced on the island and comparing it with that of the
mainland,--the growth of Louisiana,--chemists could find no difference
as to the quality of the true saccharine principle contained in each.
The Cuban sugar, compared with beet-sugar, however, is said to yield
of saccharine matter one quarter more in any given quantity.

In society the sugar planter holds a higher rank than the coffee
planter, as we have already intimated; merely