The next sugar plantation we visited was near Matanzas; but although I saw several other sugar estates, they did not particularly interest me, as they were, though perhaps on a larger scale, almost exactly like the first we had inspected. I was, however, delighted with my first coffee plantation: I shall not easily forget its fresh beauty and delightful odour. The coffee berry was introduced into Cuba from Hayti, in 1742, and has flourished greatly, but the trade has of late considerably diminished in importance. Nothing can exceed the beauty of a coffee field. The plants are grown from seed, and are planted in rows sometimes covering a thousand acres. To screen the shrubs from the prodigious heat, they are carefully protected by other plants, such as the banana and the pomegranate tree, under whose shade the shrubs grow freely. Very often the cocoa plant is grown on the same plantation as the coffee shrub. There are three kinds of chocolate-producing plants--the caracas, the pods of which are red; the guayaquil, which bears purple pods, whereas those of the criolla are yellow. The tree is not pretty: it looks too much like a small stunted pear-tree, and the fruit grows in a very odd manner, not in clusters among the leaves, but along the trunk, from the ground upwards, the seeds being protected by thick, heavy pods, which, sticking out as they do at regular intervals, produce a most whimsical appearance. The fruit is ripe for gathering between June and December, at about the same time as the coffee, the blossoms of which are in full glory early in February,--distinctly the best month in which to visit a coffee estate, and enjoy its loveliness to the full.