Travels in Brazil

by Henry Koster

THE BOILING-HOUSE.

In the boiling-house the manufactory of sugar in Brazil requires great alteration. The work is done in a slovenly manner, very little attention being paid to the minutiæ of the business. The ovens over which the boilers are placed, are rudely made, and they answer the purpose for which they are intended in an imperfect manner; enormous quantities of fuel are consumed, and the negroes who attend to the ovens are soon worn out. The juice runs from the cane as it is squeezed between the rollers, into a wooden trough below, and is from thence conveyed into a cistern made of the same material, standing in the boiling house. It is received from this cistern into the great caldron, as it is called, which is a large iron or copper vessel. The caldron has previously been heated, and when nearly full, the temper is thrown into it, and the liquor is suffered to boil. It is now scummed with considerable labour. The work of scumming is usually performed by free persons, which is owing to two causes; it demands considerable skill, to which slaves seldom attain; and the exertion which it requires induces the planter to pay a free man rather than injure one of his own people.

From this first caldron or clarifier, if I may so call it, the liquor is ladled out into a long trough or cistern, which is generally made of the trunk of one tree; and in this it remains until it becomes tepid[159]. The labour which the operation of ladling requires is excessive, the heat and smoke of a boiling-house in a tropical climate increasing greatly the violence of the exertion. From this trough which holds the whole of the contents of the great caldron, the liquor when sufficiently cool is suffered to run into the first copper, and from this it is removed into a second and a third copper, and some boiling-houses contain a fourth. From this it is ladled into large jars, called formas, when the master of the boiling-house judges from the touch that the syrup has arrived at a proper consistence. The jars are afterwards taken into the adjoining building, in which the sugar is to undergo the process of claying. The sugar, after being clayed, is invariably dried in the sun[160]. The management of the boiling-houses in the British sugar islands is arranged in such a manner as to render the labour much less violent, and much greater nicety has been introduced in the preparation of the juice.

The boilers are fixed at a considerable height over the large ovens within which the fire is made. Each boiling-house has two ovens, one for heating the caldron and the other for the three or four coppers. The mouths of these are about half as broad as the ovens themselves. Enormous rolls of timber and the branches of trees are prepared for the purpose of supplying these ovens with fuel. The negroes sometimes find it almost impossible to approach them, owing to the excessive heat which they throw out[161]. The manner of conducting the manufacture of sugar was, from what I can collect, very similar on the whole, in the Columbian islands about the beginning of the last century, to that which is practised at present in the parts of Brazil which I visited.

The temper which is usually made use of is the ashes of wood calcinated, of which there are certain species preferred for this purpose[162]. Lime is commonly used in the Columbian islands, and few planters of Pernambuco have lately introduced this alkali into their boiling houses, but there exists a general prejudice against lime, under the idea that the sugar with which it has been made is unwholesome; and this has prevented many persons from adopting it. No difficulty would be found in introducing it, among the planters themselves, because the ease with which it is obtained, would soon urge them to give it a fair trial. Some plantations sell a great portion of their sugar and rum upon the spot, and several of the lesser ones grind all their canes for the purpose of making melasses, which they distil themselves, or sell to the distillers of small capital, who are very numerous; therefore to the owners of these plantations in particular, the opinion of the people of the country is of considerable moment.

The planters of Brazil invariably follow the system of claying their sugars, but the process is too generally known to require any account of it in this place.