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Notwithstanding the many losses and crosses of his past life, there was contentment in his eye. He was gratified by the prosperous appearance of his crops. The maize was now "in the milk," and the ears, folded within the papyrus-like husks, looked full and large. It was delightful to hear the rustling of the long green blades, and see the bright golden tassels waving in the breeze.
Soon after his arrival at the Indian village Martin was given to understand, by signs, that he was to reside with a particular family, and work every day in the maize and mandioca fields, besides doing a great deal of the drudgery of the hut; so that he now knew he was regarded as a slave by the tribe into whose hands he had fallen.
This gentleman has six acres in cultivation as follows: rather more than four in maize, one in wheat, and the remainder in oats and barley. The wheat looks tolerably good, rather thin but of a good height, and the ears well filled. His farming servant guesses the produce will be twelve bushels,* and I do not think he over-rates it.
The tenth day of September a mellow autumn sun shone on maize fields where squaws labored, on lazy old braves sprawled around buffalo robes, gambling with cherry stones, and on peaceful lodges above which the blue smoke faintly wavered. It was so warm the fires were nearly out. Young warriors of the tribes were away on an expedition; but the populous Indian town swarmed with its thousands.
It produces wheat and barley, and oats, and Indian corn, or maize, in great perfection, and potatoes and a variety of other roots and vegetables of all sorts, and the finest grass for hay, and hemp and tobacco, and many other plants with difficulty grown in England. The rivers are full of fish, and game of all sorts abound.
The Tamanacs and the Maypures of Guiana wrap maize-leaves round their cigars, as the Mexicans did at the time of the arrival of Cortes. The Spaniards have substituted paper for the leaves of maize in imitation of them.
The lance was decked with feathers of many hues, extending from the blade to the socket, and fastened with rings of gold. He ran down the hill from the fortress brandishing his lance, till he reached the centre of the great square, where stood the golden urn, like a fountain, that was used for the sacrifice of the fermented juice of the maize.
In the surrounding field were patches of growing maize, wheat, potatoes, and some of the common table vegetables; the hay crop for the winter sustenance of the only cow and yoke of oxen, the best friends of the new settler, having been just cut and stored in an adjoining log-building, as was evident from the fresh look of the stubble, and the stray straws hanging to the slivered stumps or bushes in the field, and from the fragrant and far-scenting locks protruding from the upper and lower windows of the well-crammed receptacle passing under the name of barn.
They live in the wilds, except a few that have been gathered in villages and are partly civilized. They live on plants and by hunting, without farms or cattle, chickens, horses etc. Before the arrival of Europeans, their important plants were Turkish corn or maize; a sort of beans; tobacco. Maize and Tobacco are found only in America, and were brought from the new world to the old.
And the garden was full of wonderful plants; there were maize, and tobacco, and all sorts of other plants, which were said, in some parts of the world, to grow as thick as corn does at home. They were finer of skin than other folk, and they were fragrant of the strange places of the world.
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