Instead of these and several other articles, to which the views of the planters in the weaker and earlier state of the colony ought to have been turned in some degree, we find from this period the culture of rice engrossing their whole strength and attention, This commodity being an article of provision, was indeed likely always to find a good market; yet it was scarcely possible to have fixed on a staple which required more severe labour during the whole process of its preparation. The warm climate and low lands were doubtless well adapted to the nature of the grain, after experience had taught the husbandman to clear and cultivate the swampy grounds for that purpose: yet it is certain that the planters long went on with this article, and exhausted their strength in raising it on higher lands, which poorly rewarded them for their toil. After clearing the lands they commonly plant it in furrows made with a hoe, about eighteen inches asunder. When the seed is sown the fields must be carefully kept clear of noxious weeds, which retard its growth, and the earth must also be laid up to the root of the rice, to facilitate its progress. No work can be imagined more pernicious to health, than for men to stand in water mid leg high, and often above it, planting and weeding rice; while the scorching heat of the sun renders the air they breathe ten or twenty degrees hotter than the human blood, and the putrid and unwholesome effluvia from an oozy bottom and stagnated water poison the atmosphere. They sow it in April, or early in May, and reap in the latter end of August, or in the month of September. After which it is dried and carried to the barn-yard, and built in stacks, in like manner as the corn in Europe. After this it is threshed, winnowed, and ground in mills made of wood, to free the rice from the husk. Then it is winnowed again, and put into a wooden mortar, and beat with large wooden pestles, which labour is so oppressive and hard, that the firmest nerves and most vigorous constitutions sink under it. To free it from the dust and flour occasioned by pounding, it is sifted first through one sieve, and then, to separate the small and broken rice from the large, through another. Last of all, it is put into large barrels of enormous weight, and carried to the market. During the whole tedious process of its preparation, much care and great strength are requisite, and many thousands of lives from Africa have been sacrificed, in order to furnish the world with this commodity. CHAP. IV.