JANUARY 11.
I saw the whole process
of sugar-making this morning. The
ripe canes are brought in bundles to the mill, where the cleanest
of the women are appointed, one to put them into tile machine
for crushing them, and another to draw them out after the juice
has been extracted, when she throws then into an opening in the
floor close to her; another band of negroes collects them below,
when, under the name of trash , they an carried away to serve
for fuel. The juice, which is itself at first of a pale ash-colour,
gushes out in great streams, quite white with foam, and passes
through a wooden gutter into the boiling-house, where it is
received into the siphon, or " cock-copper," where fire is applied
to it, and it is slaked with lime, in order to make it granulate.
The feculent parts of it rise to the top, while the purer and more
fluid flow through another gutter into the second copper. When
little but the impure scum on the surface remains to be drawn
off, the first gutter communicating with the copper is stopped,
and the grosser parts are obliged to find a new course through
another gutter, which conveys them to the distillery, where,
being mixed with the molasses, or treacle, they are manufactured
into rum. From the second copper they are transmitted into
the first, and thence into two others, and in these four latter
basins the scum is removed with skimmers pierced with holes,
till it becomes sufficiently free from impurities to be
skipped off,
that is, to be again ladled out of the coppers and spread into the
coolers, where it is left to granulate. The sugar is then formed,
and is removed into the
curing-house, where it is put into hogs
heads, and left to settle for a certain time, during which those
parts which are too poor and too liquid to granulate, drip from
the casks into vessels placed beneath them: these drippings are
the molasses, which, being carried into the distillery, and mixed
with the coarser scum formerly mentioned, form that mixture
from which the spirituous liquor of sugar is afterwards produced
by fermentation: when but once distilled it is called "low
wine;" and it is not till after it has gone through a second distillation, that it
acquires the name of
rum. The " trash " used
for fuel consists of the empty canes: that which is employed for
fodder and for thatching is furnished by the superabundant cane
tops ; after so many have been set apart as are required for
planting. After these original plants have been cut, their roots
throw up suckers, which, in time, become canes, and are called
ratoons : they are far inferior in juice to the planted caries ; but
then, on the other band, they require much less weeding, and
spare the negroes the only laborious part of the business of
sugar-making, the digging holes for the plants; therefore,
although an acre of ratoons will produce but one hogshead of
sugar, while an acre of plants will produce two, the superiority
of the ratooned piece is very great, inasmuch as the saving of
time and labour will enable the proprietor to cultivate five acres
of ratoons in the same time with one of plants. Unluckily, after
three crops, or five at the utmost, in general the ratoons are
totally exhausted, and you are obliged to have recourse to fresh
plants.
Last night a poor man named Charles, who bad been coachman to my
uncle ages ago, was
brought into the hospital, having
missed a step in the boiling-house, and plunged his foot into the
siphon : fortunately, the fire had not long been kindled, and
though the liquor was hot enough to scald him, it was not sufficiently
so to do him any material injury. The old man had presented to me on
Saturday's holiday (or
play-day , in the
negro dialect), and had shown me, with great exultation, the
coat and waistcoat which had been the last present of his old
massa. Charles is now my chief mason, and, as one of the principal
persons on the estate, was
entitled, by old custom, to the
compliment of a
distinguishing dollar
on my arrival; but at
the
some time that I gave him the dollar to which his situation entitled him, I
gave him another for
himself, as a keepsake: he
put it into the pocket of " his old massa's" waistcoat, and assured
me that they should never again be separated. On hearing of his
accident I went over to the hospital to see that he was well
taken care of; and immediately the poor fellow began talking
to me about my grandfather and his young massa, and the young
missies, his sisters, and while I suffered him to chatter away for
an hour, he totally forgot the pain of his burnt leg.
It was particularly agreeable to me to observe on Saturday,
as a proof of the good treatment which they had experienced, so
many old servants of the family, many of whom bad been born
on the estate, and who, though turned of sixty and seventy, were
still strong, healthy, and cheerful. Many manumitted negroes
came from other parts of the country to this festival on
hearing of my arrival, because, as they said-" if they did not
come to see massa, they were afraid that it would look ungrateful, and as if
they cared no longer
about him and Cornwall now
that they were free." So they stayed two or three days on the
estate, coming up to the house for their dinners, and going to
sleep at night among their friends in their own former habitations, the
negro huts ; and when they
went away they assured
me that nothing should prevent their coming back to bid me
farewell before I left the island.
All this may be palaver; but
certainly they at least play their parts with such an air of truth,
and warmth, and enthusiasm, that after the cold hearts and repulsive
manners of England, the
contrast is infinitely agreeable.
"Je ne vois que des yeux toujours pret a sourire."
I find it quite impossible to resist the fascination of the conscious
pleasure of pleasing; and
my heart, which I have so long
been obliged to keep closed, seems to expand itself again in the
sunshine of the kind looks and words which meet me, at every
turn, and seem to wait for mine as anxiously as if they were so,
many diamonds.
