Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/475

Rh girls in the house, there will probably be a few dracænas, crotons, or perhaps a hibiscus planted beside the path from the river.

Immediately behind is the forest, reaching out its hands, as it were, to embrace the little half-clearing. Whiplike extensions of scrambling vines stretch over the fruit trees and bring one after another under their canopy. The occupier of this little paradise sees little of what is going on and cares less. Like the Indian, he considers weeding a part of the woman's duties, while the Creole woman has very loose ideas on this matter. If there are children, they crave for fruit, and are disappointed when none is to be obtained; but even if they knew the reason they could hardly be expected to do anything. The man at last begins to see how the jungle is advancing, and looks on helplessly. To fight with such a tangle is too hard for the man of the tropics; he would rather make a fresh clearing. At last the house is surrounded and the creepers run over the thatch. Probably the uprights have already been attacked by wood ants and threaten to give way. A new house must be built, and this can be done better on a fresh clearing; so the place is abandoned, and Nature again triumphs. A few months later and the landing is choked, the house fallen, and the jungle impenetrable.

The plantations before mentioned belonged to the upper districts, and were abandoned a century or more ago. There have been, however, many large estates near the mouths of the rivers and along the coasts given up during the last fifty years. No matter how large the clearing, if it is in the forest region, it must ultimately be obliterated. Here and there a brick chimney is seen peeping above the level of the forest, but otherwise there is not the slightest appearance from outside that this was once a flourishing sugar plantation. Examine it carefully, however, and you will find what at first sight appeared to be virgin forest only "second growth." This consists of fast-growing, soft-wooded trees, which in the struggle for life have outstripped the more hard timber trees of the forest proper.

Cut a way through the dense jungle on the river side, and if you are a skillful bushman the site of the house and buildings may be found. Above everything else stands the brick chimney, but what a transformation! It is so covered with wild fig roots as to be almost indistinguishable, while the top is decorated with an immense bush which will ultimately develop into a tree. Around the base of the shaft the remains of boilers and other ironwork have colored the soil, and among these may be seen broken bricks, slates, and glass. Look round carefully, and perhaps you may find the family burying place. Here are tombs with marble slabs, cracked and broken by the slow but powerful leverage of