juice. Where oxen are employed,
they often die of over-work before the close of the season, and the
slaves are allowed but five hours for sleep, though during the rest of
the year the task of the negroes is comparatively light, and they may
sleep ten hours if they choose.[43] In society, the sugar planter holds
a higher rank than the coffee planter, as we have indicated in the
classification already given; probably, however, merely as in the scale
of wealth, for it requires nearly twice the amount of capital to carry
on the former that is required to perfect the business of the latter,
both in respect to the number of hands and also as it relates to
machinery. But, as the sugar plantation surpasses the coffee in wealth,
so the coffee plantation surpasses, the sugar in every natural beauty
and attractiveness.

A coffee plantation is one of the most beautiful gardens that can well
be conceived of; in its variety and beauty baffling correct description,
being one of those peculiar characteristics of the low latitudes which
must be seen to be understood. An estate devoted to this purpose usually
covers some three hundred acres of land, planted in regular squares of
eight acres, and intersected by broad alleys of palms, mangoes, oranges,
and other ornamental and beautiful tropical trees.[44] Mingled with
these are planted lemons, pomegranates, cape jessamines, and a species
of wild heliotrope, fragrant as the morning. Conceive of this beautiful
arrangement, and then of the whole when in flower; the coffee, with its
milk-white blossoms, so abundant that it seems as though a pure white
cloud of snow had fallen there and left the rest of the vegetation fresh
and green. Interspersed in these fragrant alleys is the red of the
Mexican rose, the flowering pomegranate, and the large, gaudy flower
of the penon, shrouding its parent stem in a cloak of scarlet, with wavings
here and there of the graceful yellow flag, and many bewitchingly-fragrant
wild flowers, twining their tender stems about the base of these. In short,
a coffee plantation is a perfect floral El Dorado, with every luxury
(except ice) the heart could wish. The writer's experience was mainly
gained upon the estate of Dr. Finlay, a Scotch physician long resident
in Cuba, and who is a practising physician in Havana. He has named his
plantation, in accordance with the custom of the planters, with a fancy
title, and calls it pleasantly Buena Esperanza (good hope).

The t