A
cup and saucer are brought for you to taste the juice, which is dipped
out of the boiling vat for your service. It is very like balm-tea,
unduly sweetened; and after a hot sip or so you return the cup with
thanks. A loud noise, as of cracking of whips and of hurrahs, guides
you to the sugar-mill, where the crushing of the cane goes on in the
jolliest fashion. The building is octagonal and open. Its chief feature
is a very large horizontal wheel, which turns the smaller ones that
grind the cane. Upon this are mounted six horses, driven by as many
slaves, male and female, whose exertions send the wheel round with
sufficient rapidity. This is really a novel and picturesque sight. Each
negro is armed with a short whip, and their attitudes, as they stand,
well-balanced on the revolving wheel, are rather striking. They were
liberal of blows and of objurgations to the horses; but all their cries
and whipping produced scarcely a tenth of the labor so silently
performed by the invisible, noiseless slave that works the
steam-engine. From this we wandered about the avenues, planted with
palms, cocoas, and manifold fruit-trees,--visited the sugar-fields,
where many slaves were cutting the canes and piling them on enormous
ox-carts, and came at last to a great, open field, where many head of
cattle were quietly standing.
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