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The latter, however, did not always look very promising, most of them being so choked up with weeds that it was frequently impossible to perceive the plant itself, especially when it was young and small. It is only upon the sugar and coffee plantations that any great care is bestowed. The coffee-trees stand in rows upon tolerably steep hillocks.
Banana plantings surrounded the houses; orange-trees covered with their golden spheres reared themselves to the unusual height of thirty feet or more; maméys, with their strange nut-brown fruits, and coffee-trees, loaded to breaking, were abundant. Amid this luxuriant mass of tropical vegetation, houses were almost invisible until we were directly in front of them.
Here and there, rose the largest tree-ferns I have ever seen. I was not in the best mood, however, for enjoying the journey, and the hour-and-a-quarter seemed like much more. The great coffee finca of El Triunfo occupied an irregular valley, the slopes of which were covered with thousands of coffee-trees, with their magnificent dark green leaves and sweet-scented, white flowers.
The discovery of the properties of coffee is attributed to a dervish, who, for some misdemeanor, was carried into the mountains of Yemen by his brethren and there left to perish by starvation. In order to appease the pangs of hunger he gathered the ripe berries from the wild coffee-trees, roasted and ate them.
A few miles to the west of this a path branches off to a new district named the Duke Braganza. This path crosses the Lucalla and several of its feeders. The whole of the country drained by these is described as extremely fertile. The territory west of Braganza is reported to be mountainous, well wooded and watered; wild coffee is abundant, and the people even make their huts of coffee-trees.
At this stage it resembles a very coarse kind of flour, and is eaten in two ways; either mixed with hot water, until it forms a kind of porridge; or baked in the form of coarse flour, which is handed round at table in little baskets. She also saw a coffee plantation. The coffee-trees stand in rows upon tolerably steep hillocks.
There are patches of soil up and down, and the huge stones amongst them produce a pleasing and novel effect. You see a few coffee-trees of a fine luxuriant growth, and nearly on the top of Saba stands the house of the post-holder.
The lacy mantilla adds grace to the generally captivating beauty of the women, as they cunningly drape it over their heads to take the place of hats. The palms and cocoa-nut trees, the clusters of coffee-trees, the sugar-cane, the groves of oranges, lemons, bananas, and other fruits lend great beauty to the landscape.
Since bereft of black labour by the seductions of rum and opium, the plantation of orange-trees has sadly degenerated; the little grove of bananas has been choked with gross over-bearing weeds, the sweet-potato patch has been absorbed, the coffee-trees elbowed out of existence. But how may one man of many avocations withstand acres of riotous and exulting weeds?
The smoke soon formed a thick cloud, which effectually drove the mosquitoes out of the hut, and though which Martin, lying in his hammock, gazed out upon the sunlit orange and coffee-trees, and tall palms with their rich festoons of creeping-plants, and sweet-scented flowers, that clambered over and round the hut and peeped in at the open door and windows, while he listened to the hermit who continued for at least ten minutes to murmur slowly, between the puffs of his cigar, "Yes, I will do it; I will tell you my story."
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