But the soil along this line is originally poor and sandy; and it is far more profitable to break up the rich vegas, or low alluvial lands, even at the trouble of clearing them of forest.

So these paddocks are left, often with noble trees standing about in them, putting one in mind--if it were not for the Palmistes and Bamboos and the crowd of black vultures over an occasional dead animal--of English parks.
But few English parks have such backgrounds.

To the right, the vast southern flat, with its smoking engine-house chimneys and bright green cane-pieces, and, beyond all, the black wall of the primeval forest; and to the left, some half mile off, the steep slopes of the green northern mountains blazing in the sun, and sending down, every two or three miles, out of some charming glen, a clear pebbly brook, each winding through its narrow strip of vega.

The vega is usually a highly cultivated cane-piece, where great lizards sit in the mouths of their burrows, and watch the passer by with intense interest.

Coolies and Negroes are at work in it: but only a few; for the strength of the hands is away at the engine-house, making sugar day and night.