THE BRITISH COLONIES. 263 



when obtainable, but all animated beings ; the beasts of the field the fowls 

 of the air, insects, reptiles, and even fish have an exquisite enjoyment in 

 the consumption of sweets, and a distaste to the contrary ; in fact, sugar is 

 the alimentary ingredient of every vegetable substance encumbered with 

 greater or less proportion of bulky innutritious matter. A small quantity 

 of sugar will sustain life, and enable the animal frame to undergo corporeal 

 (I may add mental, from personal experience,) fatigue better than any 

 other substance ; often have I travelled with the Arab over the burning 

 desert, or with the wild Afric through his romantic country, and when 

 wearied with fatigue and a noontide sun, we have sat ourselves beneath an 

 umbrageous canopy, and I have shared with my companion his travelling 

 provender, a few small balls of sugar mixed with spices, and hardened into 

 a paste with flour. Invariably have I found two or three of these balls, and 

 a draught of water, the best possible restorative and even a stimulus to re- 

 newed exertion. 



" During crop time in the West Indies the negroes, although then hard 

 worked, become fat, healthy, and cheerful, and the horses, mules, cattle, 

 &c., on the estate, partaking of the refuse of the sugar-house, renew their 

 plumpness and strength. In Cochin-China, not only are the horses, buf- 

 faloes, elephants, &c. all fattened with sugar, but the body-guard of the 

 king are allowed a sum of money daily with which they must buy sugar- 

 canes, and eat a certain quantity thereof, in order to preserve their good 

 looks and embonpoint; there are about 500 of these household troops, 

 and their handsome appearance does honour to their food and to their royal 

 master. Indeed, in Cochin-China, rice and sugar is the ordinary breakfast 

 of people of all ages and stations ; and the people not only preserve 

 all their fruits in sugar, but even the greater part of their leguminous vege- 

 tables, gourds, cucumbers, radishes, artichokes, the grain of the lotus, 

 and the thick fleshy leaves of the aloes. I have eaten in India, after a six 

 month's voyage, mutton killed in Leadenhall-market, preserved in a cask 

 of sugar, and as fresh as the day it was placed on the shambles. [[In the 

 curing of meat, I believe a portion of sugar is mixed with salt and saltpetre.]] 

 The Kandyans of Ceylon preserve their venison in earthen pots of honey, 

 and after being thus kept two or three years, its flavour would delight 

 Epicurus himself. 



(( In tropical climes the fresh juice of the cane is the most efficient re- 

 medy for various diseases, while its healing virtues are felt when applied 

 to ulcers and sores. Sir John Pringle says, the plague was never known 

 to visit any country where sugar composes a material part of the diet of 

 the inhabitants. Drs. Rush, Cullen, and other eminent physicians, are 

 of opinion that the frequency of malignant fevers of all kinds is lessened 

 by the use of sugar ; in disorders of the breast it forms an excellent de- 

 mulcient, as also in weaknesses and acrid defluxions in other parts of the 

 body. The celebrated Dr. Franklin found great relief from the sickening 

 pain of the stone, by drinking half-a-pint of syrup of coarse brown sugar 

 before bed-time, which he declared gave as much, if not more relief, than 

 a dose of opium. That dreadful malady, once so prevalent on shipboard, 

 scurvy, has been completely and instantaneously stopped, by putting 

 the afflicted on a sugar diet. The diseases arising from worms, to which 

 children are subject, are prevented by the use of sugar, the love of which 

 seems implanted by nature in them ; as to the unfounded assertion of its 

 injuring the teeth, let those who make it visit the sugar plantations and 

 look at the negroes and their children, whose teeth are daily employed 

 in the mastication of sugar, and they will be convinced of the absurdity 

 of the statement. I might add many other facts relative to this delight- 

 ful nutriment. I conclude, however, with observing, that I have tamed 

 the most savage and vicious horses with sugar, and have seen the most 



