“Oh yes, massa! I will bring home enough to make sugar for all the preserves Miss Marian can make.”
“But when we have cut the canes, how is the sugar to be manufactured?” I inquired.
“I do dat,” he answered. “I ’long on sugar plantation in Jamaica, and know how to make sugar as well as any nigger slave.”
Sambo at once set out, and soon brought back a load of sugar-canes—a convincing proof that they grew in the neighbourhood. We all tried them; and for several days each member of our community was to be seen walking about with a piece of sugar-cane in his mouth. Sambo was an ingenious mechanic, and forthwith set to work to construct a sugar manufactory. It was very simple, consisting of a number of our largest clay pots for boiling the juice, and a long trough with sides, and a board at each end, slightly inclining towards the pans. Into the trough fitted a huge stone,—a large round boulder, to which ropes were attached, for hauling it backwards and forwards. The canes being placed in the trough, the heavy weight passing over them pressed out the juice, which ran through holes in the lower end into the bowls. The fuel which had previously been placed under the bowls was then lighted. As soon as the juice became hot, the impure portions rose in the form of scum, which was skimmed off. Sambo had found some lime, with which he formed lime-water to temper the liquor. The boiling process over, the fires were allowed to go out, and the liquor was then poured out into fresh pans, in which it was again gently boiled. It was afterwards transferred to a number of open wooden boxes, where it was allowed to cool, while the molasses ran off into pans placed beneath them, the part remaining in the boxes being in the form of crystals. Another draining process was then gone through, when really very respectable-looking sugar was produced.
“It would not fetch anything of a price in the market,” observed my father; “but I have no doubt that Marian will find it good enough to preserve her fruit.”
Marian was delighted, and assured Sambo that his sugar would answer very well indeed. “If we could find some tea-plants, we might have a pleasanter beverage for breakfast than either cold water or palm-wine,” observed Marian; “though, to be sure, we should have no milk to mix with it.”
“I don’t despair of finding that,” said Uncle Paul; “indeed, I can promise to bring you some fresh milk directly you can produce the tea. I only yesterday caught sight of the massaranduba, or cow-tree; and as it is not far off, I will this evening bring you a bowlful of the juice, which, when fresh, you will be unable to distinguish from the finest milk.”
Marian was of course very eager to see this wonderful vegetable milk; and in the evening Uncle Paul set out with a large bowl. Sambo and I accompanied him, Sambo carrying an axe. On going some distance through the forest, we saw a tree with deeply-scored reddish and rugged bark.
“Surely nothing like white juice can come out of so rough a skin,” I observed to Uncle Paul.
“Wait till Sambo has put his axe through it.—Cut hereabouts, Sambo,” he said, pointing to a part of the trunk under which he could hold the bowl.