We paid a visit to a large sugar estate called La Manuelita, near the town of Palmira. La Manuelita is a little world of its own; it comprises fifteen hundred acres of the most fertile and attractive part of the valley. The ranch-house, occupying a site in the centre, is a rambling two-story building of generous proportions and attractive appearance. The gardens, surrounding it with a riot of color, give it a quaint, old-fashioned charm; there has been no studied effect, no precision in the arrangement of plants or flowers; oleanders, roses, hibiscus, geraniums, and hollyhocks grow in matted profusion. Clumps of magnolias, chinaberries and oranges conceal the high stone fence. Immediately without the wall surrounding the house is the _peon_ village consisting of some fifty-odd houses of uniform size and appearance, and the sugar-factory. The _peons_ are of Spanish, Indian, and negro blood, or of a mixture of any two or all three, and require constant supervision to secure the best results. All the land is under cultivation, mostly in cane, for the production of which it is well suited. The soil is a rich alluvial loam. Some of the cane-fields at La Manuelita had not been replanted in ninety years; others on the estate of William Barney, former United States consul in Cali, had been producing one hundred and twenty years, and were still yielding eighty tons or more of cane to the acre. It was said, and all indications substantiate the report, that the entire region was at one time covered by a great lake! This accounts for the continued productiveness of the soil. Cane grows to a height of fifteen feet, there being a dozen or more stalks to each hill. It requires eight to ten months to mature. The fields are divided into sections and cut at different intervals so as to provide a succession of ripe cane for the mill, and furnish steady employment for the several hundred _peons_. The factory is modern in nearly every respect; its capacity is from five to eight tons of sugar daily, of good quality. It required a number of years to bring the heavy machinery over the mountains from Buenaventura. The more cumbersome pieces were slowly drawn up the steep slopes with the aid of block and tackle and oxen; the apparatus was so arranged that the animals could walk down-hill as they pulled, adding greatly to their efficiency. It is necessary to carry a complete stock of duplicate machinery to use in case of an accident; otherwise the factory might have to shut down a year or two while some badly needed article was being secured from abroad.