Literature.

always was the first to fall ancl the last to rise in the foreign markets . Then there were hurricanes of fearful ferocity , that tilmost periodically damaged tlie plantations ; and the soil and climate , which ivas found inefficient in producing ! coffee , was exactly suited for the cultivation of the sugar cane , and the graceful culture of the cafetal had to give place to the smoky chimney of the steam engine and sugar mill . Then the plantations were

no longer a home such as they had been , and but few families reside on their property , leaving that to the mercy of an overseer , while they indulge in the attractions of Havana or Matanzas . Mr . Dana shows the difference , ivhen he writes : —

' * Gradually , first in the western and northern parts , and daily extending easterly aucl southerly over the entire island , the exquisite cafetals have been prostrated and dismantled , the groves of shade and fruit trees cut down , the avenues and footpaths ploughed up , and the denuded land laid down . to wastes of sugar cane . " The sugar cane allows of no shade . Therefore the groves and avenues must fall . To make its culture profitable , it must be raised in the largest possible quantities that the extent of land will permit . To

attempt the raising of fruit , or of the ornamental woods , is bud economy for the sugar planter . Most of the fruits , especially the orange , which is the chief export , ripen in the midst of the sugar season , and no hands i .-au be spared to attend to them , The sugar planter often buys the fruits he needs for daily use aud for making preserves from the neighbouring cafetals . The cane ripens but once a year . Between the time when enough , of it is ripe to justify beginning to work the mill and the time when the heat and rains spoil its qualitiesall the -making

, sugar of the year must bo done . In Louisiana this period docs nut exceed eight weeks ; in Cuba it is full four months . This gives Cuba a great advantage . Yet these four months aro short enough ; and during that time the steam engine plies aud the furnace tires bum night ancl day . Sugar making brings with it steam , lire , smoke , and a drive of labour ,

and admits of and requires the application of science . " The sugar plantation is no grove , or garden , or orchard . It is not the home of tho pride and affections of the planter ' s family . It is not a coveted—indeed , hardly a desirable—residence . Such families as would like to remain on these plantations are driven oft' fur want of neighbouring society . Thus , the estates , largely abandoned by tbe families of the planters , suffer the evils of absenteeism , while the owners live in the suburbs of Havana and Matauzas , and in the fifth Avenue of New York .

The slave system loses its patriarehial character . The master is not the head of a great family , its judge , its governor , its physician , its priest , and its father—as the fond dream of the advocates of slavery , and sometimes , doubtless , the reality , made him . '' Middlemen , in tho shape of administradores , stand between the owner and the slaves . The slavs is little else than an item of labour raised or bought . The sympathies of common home , common childhood , long and intimate relationsand kind officescommon attachments to

, many , house , to land , to dogs , to cattle , to trees , to birds—the knowledge of births , sicknesses , and deaths , and tho duties and sympathies of a common religion—all those things that may ameliorate the common relations of the master and slave , aud often give to the face of servitude itself precarious but interesting features of beauty and strength—these they must not look to have . "

The manufacture of an article from the raw material is always ; m instructive subject , when the rationale of its production is well told ; and as Mr . Dana seems to have an especial gift in that way , we cannot do better than let him tell us what he saw in the process of cutting and crushing the sugar cane , so"To begin at the beginning . The cane is cut from the fields , by companies of men and womenworking togetherwho instrument

, , use an called a machete , which , is something between a sword and a cleaver . Two blows ivith this slash off the long leaves , and a third blow cuts oli the stalk , near to the ground . At this work the labourers move like reapers , in even lines , at stated distances . Before them is a field of dense high waving cane ; and behind them , strewn wrecks of stalks and ' eaves . Near , and in charge of the party , stands a driver , or , more grandiloquently , a contramayoral , with the short , limber plantation whip , the bad

ge of his office , under his arm . " Ox carts pass over the field , and are loaded with the cane , which they carry to the mill . The oxen are worked in the Spanish fashion , the yoke being strapped upon the head close to the horns , instead of being hung round the neck , as with us ; and are guided by goads , and by a rope attached to a ring through the nostrils . At the mill the eano is tipped from the carts into large piles , by the side of the platform . in these

I'Vo large yiiles it is placed carefully , by hand , lengthwise , in a long trough . This trough is made of slats , and moved by the power of the endless chain connected with the engine ' . In this trough ifc is carried between heavy , horizontal , cylindrical rollers , where it is crushed , its juice falling into receivers below , and the crushed eano passing off and tailing into a pile on the other side . This crushed cane ( bagago ) , falling from between the rollersis gathered into basketsby ancl

, , men women , who carry it on their heads into fields , and spread it for drying . There it is watched and tended as carefull y as new mown grass in haymaking , incl raked into cocks or winrows on an alarm of rain . When dry , it is jlacecl under sheds for protection against wet . From the sheds ancl i-oin the fields it is loaded into carts ancl drawn to the immense furnace

doors , into whieh it is thrown by negroes , who crowd it in by the armful , and rake it about with long polos . Here it feeds the perpetual tires by which the steam is made , the machinery moved , and the cane juice boiled . The care of the bagago is an important part of the system ; for if that becomes wet and fails , the fires must stop , or resort be bad to wand , which is scarce and expensive . " Thuson one side of the rollers is the ceaseless current of fresh

, , full , juicy eane stalks , just cut from the open field ; and on the other side is the crushed , mangled , juiceless mass , drifting out at the draught , and fit only to be cast into the oven aud burned . This is the way of the world , as it is the course of art . The eane is made to destroy itself . The ruin aud corrupted furnish the fuel and fan the flame that lures on aud draws in aud crushes the fresh and wholesome ; and the operation seems about as mechanical ancl unceasing in the one case as iu tho other . "

The machinery is American , and the engines are worked , and taken ^ charge of , by Yankees , who engage themselves to themaster of a p lantation , for the season , and then return home .. Mr . Dana reports that' •' The smell of sugar juice aud vapour , in all its stages , is intense . The negroes fatten on it . The clank of the engine , the steady grind of the machines , and the high wild cry of the negroes at the caldrons U >

the stokers at the furnace doors , as they chant out their directions or wauts—now for more fire , ancl now to scatter tbe fire—which , must be heard above the dim , 'A-a-b'la-1 A-a-b'la ; ' ' I'l-e-eha eandela ! ' ' Pu-er-ta !' and the barbaric African chant and chorus of the gang at work filling the eane-troughs ; all these make the first visit at the sugar house a strange experience . But after one or two visits the monotony is as tiresome as the first view is exciting . There is , literally , no change in the work . There are the same noises of the machines , the same cries from

negroesat the same spots , the same intensely sweet smell , the same state of the work in all its stages , at whatever hour you visit it , whether in the morning , at evening , midnight , or at the dawn ofthe day . If you wake ; up at night you hear the ' A-a-lrla 1 A-a-b'la 1 ' ' E-e-cha I Ivc-cha I' of the caldron-men crying to the stokers , and the high monotonous chant of the gangs filling the waggons or the trough , a short , Improvisated stave , and then the chorus—nofc a time , like tho song of sailors at the tackles aud falls , but a barbaric tuneless intonation .

"When I went into the sugar house , I saw a man with an unmistakably New Kngland face in charge of tho engine , with that look of intelligence and independence so different from the indi'iiendonee ancl intelligence of all other persons . "' Is not that a New England man ?' ''' Yes , ' said Mr . C , 'he is from Lowell ; and the engine was built in Lowell . ' "AVhen I found him at leisureI made myself known to himand 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 ancl Mr . Butler , Mr . Abbott , and Mr . AVentworth ; of the Boston bar and Mr . Chrate ; of Massachusetts politics and Governor Hanks ; and of national politics and the Thirty Millions Bill , and whether it would pass , and what if it did . "

There are many drawbacks and risks to be encountered by the p lanters . Fires are not by any means of uncommon occurrence , and when they break out in the cane fields are very difficult to subdue . The cholera also is much dreaded , for in ; i few hours after an attack has broken out among the slaves , its ravages are frequently so extensive as to stop the entire labour of the plantation , and swallow up a fortune in restocking the property . But , above all , the master is the greatest slave ; all depends ou him alone ; he , singly , is the moving power that sets in motion and . regulates the whole ; for Mr . Dana savs : —

" AVith all the corps of hired white labour , the master must still be the real power , and ou his character the comfort and success < if tiieplantatiou depend . If he has skill as a chemist , a geologist , or a machinist , it is not lost ; but , except as to tbe engineer , who may usually be relied upon , the master must be capable of overseeing the : whole economy of tho plantation , or all will go wrong . His chief duty is to oversee the overseers ; to watch bis officers , tbe may orals , tlio mayordomothe boyeroand the sugar masters . These are mere

hire-, , lings , and of a low sort , such as a slave system reduces them to ; and if they aro lazy , the work slackens ; and if they aro illnaturecl , somebody sulfers . The mere personal presence of the master operates as a stimulus to the work . This afternoon young Mr . C and I look horses anil rode out to the cane field , where the people wero cutting . They hacl beeu at work a half hour . He stopped his horse where they were when he came to them , and the next half hour , without a wont from him ,, they had made double the distance of the lirst . It seems to me that the

work of a plantation is what a clock would be that always required a a man ' s hand pressing on the mainspring . " And in this busy life he is ^ constantly in considerable peril ,, which nothing but extreme watchfulness and care can contend against ; for" If the master of a plantation is faithful and thorough , will tolerate uo misconduct or imposition , and yet is hmiiane and watchful oyer tbe