Now there will be silence in the loft; then there will come
a strange, half-savage cry from some dark corner, musical, yet seemingly
meaningless; soon a faint humming will begin, and will be taken up by
men and women all over the loft; the humming will swell into a chant to
which the workers rock as their black hands travel swiftly among the
brown leaves; then, presently, it will die away, and there will be
silence until they are again moved to song.
From shadowy room to shadowy room, past great dark bins filled with the
leaves, past big black steaming vats, oozing sweet-smelling substances,
past moist fragrant barrels, always among the almost spectral forms of
negroes, treading out leaves with bare feet, working over great wicker
baskets stained to tobacco color, piling up wooden frames, or operating
the powerful hydraulic presses which convert the soft tobacco into plugs
of concrete hardness--so one goes on through the factory. The browns and
blacks of these interiors are the browns and blacks of etchings; the
color of the leaves, the old dark timbers, the black faces and hands,
and the ragged clothing, combined with the humming of negro voices, the
tobacco fragrance, and the golden dust upon the air, make an
indescribably complete harmony of shade, sound, and scent.
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