Shifts and expedients of camp life, travel & exploration

by William Barry Lord; Thomas Baines

A powerful and simple description of mill is made by making a round and somewhat tapering hole in a large slab of sandstone or grit. In this a conical block of stone is fitted in such a manner as to admit of its being turned round by a cross-handle, as shown in the annexed illustration. The corn or other grain to be crushed is thrown into a groove which surrounds the hole in the bed stone.

A generally useful oil or sugar-cane mill is in general use throughout India and Ceylon. Its main bed or cylinder is formed from a solid block of hard stone, which is hewn out until of the form of an upturned mortar; in the bore or barrel is fixed, at an angle, a piece of hard, heavy, and massive baubul thorn tree, which acts as a pestle or crusher; to this is attached, by lashings of raw hide, a head bar, which serves to guide its movements and direction. This head bar is in turn connected with the travelling bar, which runs round the cylinder much as the jaws of a boom might be made to run round a mast. The illustration below will serve to show the manner in which the arrangements are made. One or more bullocks are made use of to turn the pestle of the mill; and such liquid as may be forced out of the substance under treatment runs through an orifice, like the vent of a cannon, into a cane tube, which conducts it into a pot sunk in the earth. The greater portion of the native cane sugar made in the East is manufactured by the aid of this description of mill.

NATIVE MILL.

Whilst at Tette, in Africa, we had an opportunity of seeing the process of cane sugar making carried out by the native cultivators, which is conducted as follows: Early in the morning a quantity of canes, minus their tops, were brought in, and a couple of men, armed with thin double-edged soft iron knives, 2ft. long and 3in. wide, caught up the canes in their left hands and chopped off pieces about 2ft. long, letting them fall in heaps, whence they were taken by others, who dressed off any knots or young shoots that might impede their progress through the mill. As soon as this was completed, the parts of the machine, which are always taken asunder and cleaned after a day’s work, were set up, the whole consisting of eight pieces of wood—first, the trough, or canoe as the natives call it (an oblong block 5ft. long, 2ft. 6in. wide, with a hollow 3in. deep to catch the juice, and three circular holes or sockets in the centre, cut not quite through, to receive the lower ends of the rollers); secondly, two posts, one at either end of the trough, with their upper ends tenoned to carry another log with corresponding sockets for the upper end of the rollers; thirdly, three vertical rollers, 4ft. long and 8in. diameter, their upper parts being cut into the form of a long screw, the worm of the centre one running in the usual direction, and those of the two others in the opposite. The head of the central roller projects above the framework, and is squared so as to fit into a mortice in the middle of a long beam, the two ends of which are used as levers, and, when turned, the deep-cut worm, acting on those of the other rollers, causes them to revolve in the opposite direction. A heap of cane was laid by the mill; and, while eight or ten men ran round with the lever bar, a native, squatting on the receiving side, fed the canes by handfuls between the centre and the right-hand roller; while another, catching them as they came out (as shown in the above illustration), sent them back again between the centre and the opposite roller on his own right. This was repeated till the canes were crushed dry and the trough filled.

SUGAR-CANE MILL.

The juice was baled out with a calabash; and when it became shallow was scooped up by the hand, strained through a basket into two large copper pans 30in. wide and 8in. deep, and boiled on open wood fires, a couple of women stirring it till sufficiently evaporated. The pans were then placed on small heaps of soft earth, and the stirring continued till the whole mass assumed the consistency of dough or toffy, and eventually crystallised into a fine bright yellowish brown sugar, leaving no treacle, molasses, or refuse of any kind.

The green cane chewed to express the juice is pleasant and nutritious; the fresh sap is a most luxurious draught; the syrup, thickened by boiling, but not yet crystallised, is of a bright golden colour, and better in taste than what we call treacle; the pap or toffy is by no means bad.

Next morning, as the friction of the rollers had worn the outer side of the sockets and thus increased the space between them, a native carpenter let in pieces of hard wood across the grain of the beam, and in them cut hollows to the proper outline of the sockets. This is frequently necessary; and, if it is too long delayed, the rollers separate so much that the thread of the centre screw catches the edge instead of the hollow of the others, and is liable to break both. A set of rollers will last from one to three seasons, according to the amount of work required. The panellas, or earthen sugar jars, are made by women.