Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/477

Rh While this transformation has been taking place in front, Nature has not been inactive behind. There is a large body of water in the swamps always trying to find an exit, and it is only by strict attention to the slightest breach that the planter keeps his estate from getting inundated. Now, of course, there is no one to attend to this matter, and when the heavy rains fall the flood carries down the weakened dam and makes a greater inundation behind than there is in front. The canes, which have hitherto managed to exist after a fashion, now rot, and with them go the Bahama grass and some of the other weeds which only live on comparatively dry land. These, however, are soon replaced by a host of sedges, grasses, and marsh shrubs which make as impenetrable a jungle as the others. Now the vegetation forms two distinct zones, that in front comprising littoral plants; and behind, those of the fresh-water savanna.

Rarely, however, is an estate on the coast allowed to revert entirely to its pristine condition, as there is generally a public road to be kept up which necessitates a proper sea dam. It follows, therefore, that the mangrove swamp is kept outside the boundary line and the abandoned plantation is partially drained to prevent danger to the road from floods aback. In such cases the vegetation is not so rampant, but it is still far beyond anything seen in temperate climates. Every trench is filled with water plants, and the land is overrun with sour grass (Paspalum conjugatum). This grass, which is the pest of every pasture in the wet season, covers a waterlogged plantation almost to the exclusion of everything else. During the rains it is ahead of everything, and it is only during a drought that it languishes a little. Then, the Bahama grass and a few other weeds find room for a small show, to be again vanquished, however, as the next wet season sets in. Where once was the battlefield of man and Nature is now the scene of an annual struggle between two great armies of plants. Man fought against both, and they maintained a most gallant defense, only retiring inch by inch. Now they have both rushed in to fight each other for the mastery.

For some time after the plantation has been abandoned the lines of the draining trenches, and even the geometrical shape of the cane beds, can still be traced, but when there is nothing in the way of the flood, either in front or behind, these soon fill up or sink to one uniform level. It is, however, sometimes possible to find relics of the plantation buildings, as the débris often rises above the level of other portions of the estate. The bricks and all other materials of any value were removed prior to its abandonment, but there were always heaps of rubbish not worth carting away, and these remain, covered with weeds, to tell the investigator of some future age what manner of people lived here. Even if