SOUTH CAROLINA 219 



of the weather, are rather to be explained by the misuse 

 of strong drinks, which at that season are gulped down 

 as strengthened. 



The expense for rum, or sugar-brandy, is through- 

 out America very considerable, but especially in the 

 southern parts where no domestic drinks are prepared. 

 The common drink among the people of the middle 

 and northern regions is cyder. The use of beer is 

 confined for the most part to the towns, and only in 

 Pensylvania and Maryland is good domestic beer to be 

 found in the country towns, where the inhabitants are 

 mainly Germans. But nowhere is there a lack of rum 

 and whiskey, or fruit brandy. Rum is in part brought 

 immediately from the West Indies, but it is also dis- 

 tilled in America, in New England especially, from 

 the molasses fetched from those islands ; this sort is in 

 quality much inferior to that brought in direct. Im- 

 ports, to all of North America, of West Indian rum 

 alone are reckoned at nigh 3,000,000 gallons, proof, 

 (not to speak of the use of the rum made in the 

 country and of the domestic whiskey), of the great 

 consumption of this article, w T hich is very little ex- 

 ported to other parts. This heavy consumption of 

 rum is occasioned : by its low price ; by the want oi 

 other drinks, for which rum and water are substitutes ; 

 by custom and predilection, which alas are all too often 

 ruinous to the health ; and finally by the prepossession 

 that in great heat, in great cold, and during severe 

 work, this heart-strengthener is indispensable. 



The multifariousness of the drinks for which rum 

 gives occasion is great, and to enumerate them all a 

 long particularization would be necessary. I mention 



