CHAPTER VII.
The Sugar-cane Plantations.—Indian Laborers.—A Lawsuit.—The Botanic Garden.—Plants and Animals.—Singular Monument.—The Waterfall.—Mont Orgeuil.—Trou du Cerf.—The Creoles and the French.—Farewell to the Mauritius.
The greatest sugar-cane plantations are in the district of Pamplemousse, in which also the Botanical Gardens are situated. I visited the Monchoisy plantation, the property of Mr. Lambert. The manager, Mr. Gilat, was kind enough to escort me through the fields and buildings, and to give me such a lucid explanation of the method of growing and preparing the sugar-cane, that I can not do better than give his own words, as nearly as I can remember them.
“The sugar-cane is not raised from seed, but pieces of cane are planted. The first cane requires eighteen months to ripen; but as, during this time, the chief stem puts out shoots, each of the following harvests can be gathered in at intervals of twelve months, so that three crops are obtained in four years and a half. After the fourth harvest the field must be thoroughly cleared of the cane. If the land is virgin soil on which no former crop has been raised, fresh slips of cane can at once be planted, and thus eight crops may be obtained in nine years. If this is not the case, ambrezades must be planted—a leafy plant, which grows to the height of eight or nine feet, and whose leaves, continually falling, decay on the ground and fertilize it. After two years the plants are rooted out, and the land becomes a sugar plantation again.”
For about the last ten years the custom has prevailed of dressing the land with guano, and very good results have been obtained. On good ground 8000 lbs. per acre have been raised, and on bad soil, that formerly yielded 2000 lbs. at the most, the produce has been doubled.
I was much astonished to see the beautiful widespread plains of Pamplemousse covered with great pieces of lava. It would appear as if nothing could grow under such circumstances; but I heard that this peculiarity of the soil is favorable to the sugar-cane, which will not bear a long drought. It is planted between these fragments of rock, and the rain-water, collecting in pools in the clefts and holes, keeps the ground moist for a long time.
When the canes are ripe and the harvest begins, no more is cut down each day than can be pressed and boiled at once, for the great heat soon spoils the sap in the canes. The cane is pressed between two rollers, turned by steam, with such force that it is crushed quite flat and dry; it is then used as fuel for boiling the kettles.
The juice runs successively into six kettles or pans, of which the first is most fiercely heated; the force of the fire is made to diminish under each of the others. In the last kettle the sugar is found almost half produced. It is then placed on great wooden tables where it is left to cool, and here the mass granulates into crystals of the size of a pin’s head. As a final operation, it is poured into wooden vessels perforated with small holes, through which the molasses still contained in the sugar may filter. The whole process requires eight or ten days for its completion. Before the sugar is packed, it is spread out on great terraces to dry for some hours in the sun. It is shipped in bags containing 150 lbs. each.
Mr. Lambert’s sugar plantation contains 2000 acres of land, but of course only a part of this is planted each year. He has 600 laborers, who are engaged for seven months in the year in the field, and during the other five in getting in the crop and boiling it. In a good year—that is, when the rainy season sets in early and lasts long—Mr. Lambert gets three million pounds of sugar from his plantation; but he is well content with two millions and a half. A hundred pounds of sugar are worth from nine to twelve shillings.
The largest planter in the Mauritius is a Mr. Rocheconte, who is said to produce nearly seven million pounds of sugar annually.