slopes are hung with stately trees, graceful shrubs,
and masses of creeping and climbing plants; from crag to crag falls the
silver of miniature cascades. Madame Pfeiffer did not fail to visit the
sugar-cane plantations, which cover the broad and fertile plains of
Pamplimousse. She learned that the sugar-cane is not raised from seed,
but that pieces of cane are planted. The first cane requires eighteen
months to ripen; but as, meanwhile, the chief stem throws out shoots,
each of the succeeding harvests can be gathered in at intervals of
twelve months: hence four crops can be obtained in four years and a
half. After the fourth harvest, the field must be cleared completely of
the cane. If the land be virgin soil, on which no former crop has been
raised, fresh slips of cane may be planted immediately, and thus eight
crops secured in nine years. But if such be not the case, "umbregades"
must be planted; that is, a leafy plant, growing to the height of eight
or nine feet, the leaves of which continually falling, decay, and
fertilize the soil. After two years the plants are rooted out, and the
ground is once more occupied by a sugar plantation.

When the canes are ripe, and the harvest begins, as many canes are cut
down every day as can be pressed and boiled at once. The cane is
introduced between two rollers, set in motion by steam power, and
pressed until it is quite flat and dry; in this state it is used for
fuel. The juice is strained successively into six pans, of which the
first is exposed to the greatest heat, the force of the fire being
diminished gradually under each of the others. In the last pan the sugar
is found half crystallized. It is then deposited on great wooden tables
to cool, and granulate into complete crystals of about the size of a
pin's head. Lastly it is poured into wooden colanders, to filter it
thoroughly from the molasses still remaining. The whole process occupies
eight or ten days. Such, in brief, is Madame Pfeiffer's explanation.

Our adventurous lady--now in her sixtieth year--made an excursion, of
course, to Mont Orgueil, which commands a very fine view of the island
scenery. On one side the high ridge of the Mont Brabant, which is linked
to the mainland only by a narrow neck of earth, stretches far out into
the shining sea; near at hand rises the Pitou de la Riviere Noire, the
loftiest summit in the island--2,564 feet. In another direction are
visible the green heights of the Tamarin and the