Page:Pictures of life in Mexico Vol 2.djvu/125

Rh parties had suffered in a great degree in consequence.

The animosity of the owners had extended as is generally the case to the servants and labourers employed on the plantations. Demonstrations of defiance and opposition had been often exchanged between the hostile parties: many were the petty annoyances to which each band had subjected the other; and many a hand-to-hand fight and general skirmish had taken place in assertion of stated rights and defence of doubtful privileges.

On one particular occasion the Indians employed upon the plantation called "Naqua" perceived on entering a field after sunrise that a number of the finest tobacco plants had been cut down in the night and their leaves which were fast approaching maturity, recklessly cast to the four winds. Several vats and vessels containing water had also been broken, and their contents wasted, so that the remaining shrubs would sustain injury from lack of moisture. Three of the sheds, used for drying and sorting tobacco, had been sadly abused and dilapidated; and to crown the whole, the watery contents of a couple of large cisterns had been set afloat, to saturate a