The
wages here are very trifling indeed; a common labourer receives
three dollars a month, without either board or lodging; and yet with
this, he is enabled not only to subsist himself, but to maintain a
family. Their huts, which are composed of foliage, they build
themselves; their food consists of small fish, roots, and a few
vegetables. Nor is their apparel more expensive; for, beyond the
immediate vicinity of the town, and where all the plantations are
situated, the children go about entirely naked, while the men wear
nothing more than a small apron about a hand's-breadth wide, and
fastened between the legs: the women are the only persons dressed
with anything like propriety.
The plantations that we now saw, and which we reached about 10
o'clock, were cultivated by Chinese. In addition to their huts of
leaves, they had erected a small temple, where they invited us to
alight. We immediately spread out upon the altar some refreshments,
which Madame Behu, like a good housewife, had given us; but, instead
of imitating the Chinese, and sacrificing them to the gods, we were
wicked enough to devour them ravenously ourselves.
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