first came under English protection, and which were afterward
mournfully abandoned to ruin upon the sudden recession of Florida by
the English government."

"They are ruins of interest to me," said our English friend, "for one
of them--perhaps some one that you beheld--represents the wreck of my
great-great-grandfather's fortune. He could not bear to stay among the
dreadful Spaniards and Indians; and so, there being nobody to sell to,
he simply abandoned homestead, plantations and all, and returned to
England, and, finding soon afterward that the East India Company was
earnestly bent upon fostering the indigo-culture of India, he
came here and recommenced planting. Since then we've all been
indigo-planters--genuine 'blue blood,' we call ourselves."

Indigo itself had a very arduous series of toils to encounter before
it could manage to assert itself in the world. The ardent advocates
of its azure rival, woad, struggled long before they would allow its
adoption. In 1577 the German government officially prohibited the use
of indigo, denouncing it as that pernicious, deceitful and corrosive
substance, the Devil's dye. It had, indeed, a worse fate in England,
where hard names were supplemented by harsh acts, for in 1581 it was
not only pronounced _anathema maranatha_ by act of Parliament, but the
people were authorized to institute search for it in their neighbors'
dye-houses, and were empowered to destroy it wherever found. Not more
than two hundred years have passed since this law was still in force.
It was only after a determined effort, which involved steady
losses for many years, that the East India Company succeeded in
re-establishing the culture of indigo in Bengal. The Spanish and
French in Central America and the West Indies had come to be large
growers, and the production of St. Domingo was very large. But the