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In the tropics. Fabens, Joseph Warren, (1821–1875).
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in The Tropics, BY A SETTLER IN SANTO DOMINGO.

WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTICE BY

RICHARD B. KIMBALL

AUTHOR OF "St. Leger," "Undercurrents," &c.FIFTH EDITION.

NEW YORK: Carleton, Publisher. LONDON: BENTLEY.

M.DCCC.LXIII.
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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, BY GEORGE W. CARLETON, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. M'CREA & MILLER, STEREOTYPERS. C. A. ALVORD, PRINTER.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "ST. LEGER."

WE cannot advise any mere man or woman of fashion, young or old, to take up this volume. Neither the one nor the other will be interested in it, for neither will have the taste to appreciate its contents, unless perchance some such person, in a moment of ennui, should be attracted by the freshness of the descriptions and the novelty of the scenes to run through its pages; as a reigning belle sometimes stops to regard, with a mixture of envy and admiration, the natural bloom which mantles the cheek of a fine, unsophisticated country girl: but this is exceptional.

There are those who will peruse this book with pleasure and satisfaction. Whoever loves garden, and grove, and shrub, and vine, finding enjoyment in all the gifts of our kindly mother earth, will lay hold of it with avidity. Such will be pleased to learn page: 4-5[View Page 4-5] what Nature—not the stern old parent of our North, but Nature young and prodigal and Eden-like, brings forth in the charmed circle of her tropical home. These have taste and a fine appreciation, and, we may hope, the opportunity to gratify both.

To another class still, this work will specially commend itself; to that class—alas! its members are numerous—who yearn after the happiness of a home without means or the hope of means to acquire one; who have become wearied and discouraged by years of incessant effort and overwork, without any prospect of breaking the fetters which bind them to their destiny, and which are forged but too securely. They will find a way of escape by perusing this romantic, but truthful, narrative.

"In the Tropics" is the twelve-month record of a young man who for a number of years was a clerk in a large mercantile establishment in this city. Finding that without friends or capital it was nearly, or, as it seemed to him, quite impossible ever to accomplish any thing on his own account, and that he was becoming daily more unfitted for any other occupation; warned too by the misfortunes of an elder brother, he resolved to quit the city, while health and vigor still remained to him, and seek a home elsewhere. He gives his reasons for deciding to go to Santo Domingo, and this volume is the history of his first twelvemonth's experience in that island, being brought down to the 1st of January of the present year.

The work is written with a simplicity absolutely fascinating, reminding one of the finer passages of Defoe. The record of his daily routine on his little estancia of forty acres is so minute in detail, and so interesting by its freshness, that we find ourselves unconsciously sharing all the hopes and fears of the young American farmer. We are anxious about the success of every experiment, and rejoice at every turn of good fortune which befalls him.

The descriptions of the persons our hero encounters are so vividly drawn that the reader at once feels at home with them. Don Julio page: 6-7[View Page 6-7] Perez becomes our friend as well as the friend of "Señor Vecino." We embrace Don Delfino again and again as we experience his fresh acts of kindness, almost daily repeated. The friendly services of Juan Garcia go straight to our heart, especially if we take into account the active benevolence of his "lily of a wife" (black though she be), the officious, bustling, and gossiping Anita. These worthy people seem to have taken the "innocent lamb of a stranger" under their special protection, and well do they perform their trust.

To us, however, Tio Juanico is the picturesque character of the scene. He is thus described:

"His dark Indian face, with its gentle mouth and sadly earnest eyes, was not uncomely, and his shapely head, with its mass of jetty hair, was really noticeable in its fine proportions; but both his back and breast had a peculiar and ungainly prominence, amounting to deformity. Aside from this, he was a muscular, well-limbed man, in the strength of his age, and, as I soon saw, as ready as he was capable for hard work. His voice was strikingly clear and musical, but it had the same expression of patient sadness which looked out of his eyes."

Juanico becomes the servant, friend, and faithful man-Friday of the New Yorker, and makes one of the most charming points in the volume. To finish the picture, we have narrated with almost ludicrous fidelity the story of the perfidious native choppers who stole all our friend's satin-wood; then an account of the "man Andres" and his shrewd spouse, who were so sharp in the matter of cocoa-nut sprouts; while the affair of the swindling mason, who attempts to take advantage of the "Señor's" necessities, goes to confirm the old adage, that "human nature is pretty much the same the world over."

But we must leave these fascinating scenes that the reader may the more speedily enter on them. Before we do, however, we earnestly solicit the at tention of every reflecting person to this single paragraph. Writes the young "settler:"

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"The most manly workers I have seen in this country are white men. Under the warm sun of the tropics, white working men and machinery will yet open the grandest field of civilization ever realized."

A sermon, a lecture, a treatise are bound up in these two sentences. Let the thoughtful reader weigh them well.

It is proper to observe, that we received the manuscript for this volume from an esteemed friend in Santo Domingo City. To us has belonged only the agreeable task of making some trifling revisions for the press, which the absence of the author prevented being done in person.

NEW YORK, June, 1863.

CONTENTS.

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