They grow fewer and finer as you ride on; and soon you are in open country, principally of large paddocks.

These paddocks, like all West Indian ones, are apt to be ragged with weeds and scrub.

But the coarse broad-leaved grasses seem to keep the mules in good condition enough, at least in the rainy season.

Most of these paddocks have, I believe, been under cane cultivation at some time or other; and have been thrown into grass during the period of depression dating from 1845.

It has not been worth while, as yet, to break them up again, though the profits of sugar-farming are now, or at least ought to be, very large.