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The husband of Charlotte was dead; her children were left behind in the cotton and cane-fields; their master refuses to take less than $2,400 for them; their names and ages are as follows: Zeno, about fifteen; Antoinette, about thirteen; Joseph, about eleven; and Josephine, about ten years old.
Sometimes the air, by the meeting of opposite currents, assumes the form of a whirlwind: a dark cloud preceding it, unrolling itself suddenly, and mantling the whole heavens in gloom, lightened occasionally by the flashings of lurid fire, while if upon land, houses, corn-stacks, cane-fields, and even whole forests, are whirled aloft and scattered to fragments in an instant; or, if upon the deep, the whole ocean is wrought into maddened and foaming fury; and woe to the vessel, no matter for its strength or magnitude, that is brought within the vortex of the tempest.
Since the war the ocean reclaimed its own; the cane-fields have degenerated into sandy plains, over which tramways wind to the smooth beach; the plantation-residences have been converted into rustic hotels, and the negro-quarters remodelled into villages of cozy cottages for the reception of guests.
The first six or seven miles of our journey was uninteresting enough, but when we plunged into the mountain road and found ourselves environed on each side by a thick growth of luxuriant tropical vegetation, the foliage and flowers of which bore all and more than all the hues of the rainbow, whilst gorgeous butterflies, gaudy insects, and birds of the most brilliant plumage flitted hither and thither about us, with an occasional opening in the dense growth revealing the most enchanting little views of the distant harbour and sea, or perchance a passing glimpse of some quiet vale, with its cane-fields, boiling-house, and residential buildings, our journey became an enjoyable one indeed.
Dotted over the country are the pens, or farms, of the planters their residences extensive, though not often more than one story in height, with gardens surrounding them, the works, boiling-houses, and other buildings generally concealed from view by thick woods; while beyond are the cane-fields and the dark, low huts of the negroes, standing together in the form of a village, far more picturesque at a distance than when closely approached.
Not a negro was seen moving about in the neighbourhood of the house, and, except that here and there blackened patches showed that the cane-fields had been visited by the ruthless bands of the insurgents, there were no signs visible of the fearful rebellion raging throughout the country.
Then there is the sugar plantation of Kaiwiki, with its patches of bright green cane, its flumes crossing the track above our heads, bringing the cane down from the upland cane-fields to the crushing-mill, and the shifting, busy scenes of the sugar-boiling season. Then the track goes down with a great dip, along which we slip and slide in the mud to a deep broad stream.
When the surveyor returned to the rear train, Claude was in a corner seat gazing pensively through the window and out across the wide, backward-flying, purpling green cane-fields of St. Mary, to where on the far left the live-oaks of Bayou Teche seemed hoveringly to follow on the flank of their whooping and swaggering railway-train. Claude turned and met the stranger's regard with a faint smile.
The island is peopled with these varieties, in addition to a mixed white population, the Indians having been brought from Hindostan for the cane-fields since the English occupation in 1810, and serving a good purpose.
While it was light they stared out at the blue sea or down on the rippling cane-fields, not daring to exchange more than a casual and hasty glance.
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