It is hard work, and the swarthy descendants of Ham look as if they were in a vapour-bath, and doubtless bedew the leaf with superfluous heat.
After the first pressing, it goes to a more artistic old negro, who, with two buckets of water--one like pea-soup, the other as dark as if some of his children had been boiled down in it--and armed with a sponge of most uninviting appearance, applies these liquids with most scientific touch, thereby managing to change the colour, and marble it, darken it, or lighten it, so as to suit the various tastes.

This operation completed, and perspiring negroes screwing down frantically, it is forced into the box prepared for its reception, which is imbedded in a strong iron-bound outer case during the process, to prevent the more fragile one from bursting under the pressure.

All this over, and the top fixed, a master-painter covers it with red and black paint, recording its virtues and its charms.

What a pity it could not lie in its snug bed for ever! But, alas! fate and the transatlantic Anglo-Saxon have decreed otherwise.

Too short are its slumbers, too soon it bursts again, to suffer fresh pressure under the molars of the free and enlightened, and to fall in filthy showers over the length and breadth of the land, deluging every house and every vehicle to a degree that must be seen to be believed, and filling the stranger with much wonder, but far more disgust.