"Is not that a New England man?"

"Yes," said Mr. Chartrand, "he is from Lowell; and the engine was built
in Lowell."

When I found him at leisure, I made myself known to him, and he sat down
on the brickwork of the furnace, and had a good unburdening of talk; for
he had not seen any one from the United States for three months. He
talked, like a true Yankee, of law and politics--the Lowell Bar and Mr.
Butler, Mr. Abbott and Mr. Wentworth; of the Boston Bar and Mr. Choate;
of Massachusetts politics and Governor Banks; and of national politics
and the Thirty Millions Bill, and whether it would pass, and what if it
did.

This engineer is one of a numerous class, whom the sugar culture brings
annually to Cuba. They leave home in the autumn, engage themselves for
the sugar season, put the machinery in order, work it for the four or
five months of its operation, clean and put it in order for lying by,
and return to the United States in the spring. They must be machinists,
as well as engineers; for all the repairs and contrivances, so necessary
in a remote place, fall upon them. Their skill is of great value, and
while on the plantation their work is incessant, and they have no
society or recreations whatever. The occupation, however, is healthful,
their position independent, and their pay large. This engineer had been
several years in Cuba, and I found him well informed, and, I think,
impartial and independent. He tells me, which I had also heard in
Havana, that this plantation is a favorable specimen, both for skill and
humanity, and is managed on principles of science and justice, and
yields a large return. On many plantations--on most, I suspect, from all
I can learn--the Negroes, during the sugar season, are allowed but four
hours sleep in the twenty-four, with one for dinner, and a half hour for
breakfast, the night being divided into three watches, of four hours
each, the laborers taking their turns. On this plantation, the laborers
are in two watches, and divide the night equally between them, which
gives them six hours for sleep. In the day, they have half an hour for
breakfast and one hour for dinner. Here, too, the very young and the
very old are excused from the sugar-house, and the nursing mothers have
lighter duties and frequent intervals of rest. The women worked at
cutting the cane, feeding the mill, carrying the bagazo in baskets,
spreading and drying it, and filling the wagons; but not in the
sugar-house