The West Indies and the Spanish Main

by Anthony Trollope

According to the more advanced method it runs from the dipper down through filtering bags, is then pumped into a huge vacuum pan, a utensil like a kettle-drum turned topsy-turvy, a kettle-drum that is large enough to hold six tons of sugar. Then it is reheated, and then put into open round boxes called centrifugals, the sides of which are made of metal pierced like gauze. These are whisked round and round by steam-power at an enormous rate, and the molasses flies out through the gauze, leaving the sugar dry and nearly white. It is then fit to go into the hogshead, and fit also to be shipped away.

But in the simpler process, the molasses drains from the sugar in the hogshead. To facilitate this, as the sugar is put into the cask, reeds are stuck through it, which communicate with holes at the bottom, so that there may be channels through which the molasses may run. The hogsheads stand upon beams lying a foot apart from each other, and below is a dark abyss into which the molasses falls. I never could divest myself of the idea that the negro children occasionally fall through also, and are then smothered and so distilled into rum.

There are various other processes, intermediate between the highly-civilized vacuum pan and the simple cooling, with which I will not trouble my reader. Nor will I go into the further mystery of rum-making. That the rum is made from the molasses every one knows; and from the negro children, as I suspect.

The process of sugar-making is very rapid if the appliances be good. A planter in Demerara assured me that he had cut his canes in the morning, and had the sugar in Georgetown in the afternoon. Fudge! however, was the remark made by another planter to whom I repeated this. Whether it was fudge or not I do not know; but it was clearly possible that such should be the case. The manufacture is one which does not require any delay.

In Demerara an acre of canes will on an average give over a ton and a half of sugar. But an acre of cane ground will not give a crop once in twelve months. Two crops in three years may perhaps be the average. So much for the manufacture of sugar. I hope my account may not be criticised by those who are learned in the art, as it is only intended for those who are utterly unlearned.

But if looking over sugar-works be at last fatiguing, what shall I say to that labour of "going aback," which Guiana planters exact from their visitors. Going aback in Guiana means walking from the house and manufactory back to the fields where the canes grow. I have described the shape of a Demerara estate. The house generally stands not far from the water frontage, so that the main growth of the sugar is behind. This going aback generally takes place before breakfast. But the breakfast is taken at eleven; and a Demerara sun is in all its glory for three hours before that. Remember, also, that there are no trees in these fields, no grass, no wild flowers, no meandering paths. Everything is straight, and open, and ugly; and everything has a tendency to sugar, and no other tendency whatever, unless it be to rum. Sugar-canes is the only growth. So that a walk aback, except to a very close inquirer, is not delightful. It must however be confessed that the subsequent breakfast makes up for a deal of misery. There is no such breakfast going as that of a Guiana planter. Talk of Scotland! Pooh! But one has to think of that doctor's dictum—"The prevalent disease, sir? Brandy!" It seems, however, to me to show itself more generally in the shape of champagne.

There is one other peculiar characteristic of landed property in this colony which I must mention. All the carriage is by water, not only from the works to the town, but from the fields to the works, and even from field to field. The whole country is intersected by drains, which are necessary to carry off the surface waters; there is no natural fall of water, or next to none, and but for its drains and sluices the land would be flooded in wet weather. Parallel to these drains are canals; there being, as nearly as I could learn, one canal between each two drains. These different dykes are to a stranger similar in appearance, but their uses are always kept distinct.

Nor do these canals run only between wide fields, or at a considerable distance from each other. They pierce every portion of land, so that the canes when cut have never to be carried above a few yards. The expense of keeping them in order is very great, but the labour of making them must have been immense. It was done by the Dutch. One may almost question whether any other race would have had the patience necessary for such a work.

I was told on one estate that there were no less than sixty-three miles of these cuttings to be kept in order. But the gentleman who told me was he to whom the other gentleman alluded, when he used our old friend, Mr. Burchell's exclamation. There can be no doubt but that these Guiana planters know each other.

On the whole, I must express my conviction that this is a fine colony, and will become of very great importance.