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.
Sugar, and nothing but sugar, is to be seen in this island. Every undertaking has reference to sugar, and all the conversation is about sugar. Mauritius might be called the sugar island, and its coat of arms should be a bundle of sugar-canes and three sugar-bags rampant.
During a residence of some weeks I had opportunities of observing the condition and circumstances of the laborers. They are called “coolies,” and come, as I have mentioned, from all parts of India. They hire themselves for five years, and the planter who hires them has to give each laborer 8s. or 10s. a month, 50 lbs. of rice, 4 lbs. of dried fish, 4 lbs. of beans, 4 lbs. of fat or oil, a sufficiency of salt, and a little hut to live in, besides the sum he has to pay to the government for their passage.