During  the  forenoon  he  is  allowed  half  an  hour  to  cook  his
half  pound  of  rice,  his  occasional  piece  of  meat  or  fish,  and
perhaps  a  scrap  of  vegetables.     This  apology  for  a  meal  over
he  returns  to  his  labour,  which  is  vigilantly  superintended  by  a
task-master.     At  dusk  he  is  driven  back  to  his  pen,  where  he
eats  what  serves  as  his  second  meal,  and  then  to  bed.     A  pound
of  rice  per  day  is  the  contract  stipulation  as  a  rule,  and  even
this  quantity  is  not  fairly  distributed.     The  boundaries  of  the
estates  are  carefully  watched  to  prevent  men  leaving  them,  and
at  night  time  they  are  all  locked  up  together  in  the  '  galpones/
as  their  prisons  are  termed.     The  lash  is  unsparingly  used  as
the  punishment   for  the  smallest  peccadillo,  and  it  is  most
cruelly  applied  by  the  half-blooded  Spanish  Negroes,  who  evi-
dently enjoy  their  brutal  task.     Evasion  is  the  most  heinous
crime  in  the  code  of  a  plantation,  ranking  far  higher  than
murder.     It  is  always  severely  punished,  and  the  offender,  if
carried  back  alive,  which  sometimes  he  is  not,  is  kept  con-
stantly '  on  the  chain.'     This  term  is  employed  to  describe  a
man  who  has  a  ring  of  iron  welded  round  one  of  his  ankles,
to  which  is  attached  a  long  chain  with  a  weight  at  the  end.
Frequently,  instead  of  this  weight,  the  chain  terminates  in  a
similar  welded  ring  round   the   leg   of  another  unfortunate.
