102 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



world, and that an interchange of the plants of the tropical and 

 temperate climates, might be made successfully, after they had 

 been completely naturalized there. 



The Portuguese once drew their principal supphes of sugar from 

 Madeira^, but when the cane had succeeded in the West Indies =, 



^ In the fifteenth century, 400 Venetian cantaras of sugar were annually produced 

 in Madeira, but the relative capacity of this measure cannot now be ascertained. 

 Collegao de Noticias, p. 10. Sugar is still made in small quantities, but it is never 

 granulated. The West-India cane was the only one cultivated until within these few 

 years, when a variety was introduced from Cayenne, which is evidently the Bourbon 

 cane, (s. luteum of Tussac) from its short joints, and the colour of the bark, which is 

 of a deep yellow, tinged with red ; it is also considerably thicker than the others. The 

 common green cane (s. officinarum) has longer and smaller joints, occasionally tinged 

 with a patch of red. The Bourbon yields more sugar, but less juice, than the others, 

 and the only objection to it is, that the cattle will not eat its leaves, being rough and 

 prickly. The sugar cane was sent from Madeira to Vicente, on the coast of Brazil, 

 in 1531. 



5 The Portuguese, however, seem first to have transferred the cane to the Island of 

 St. Thomas, on the African coast, (discovered in 1471-2,) from the curious account 

 of a Portuguese pilot, who visited that island about 1550, when 150,000 arrobas (about 

 3000 hogsheads) of sugar were exported annually. The soil yielded a crop of ripe 

 canes every five months, the rains and cloudy atmosphere of March and September 

 occurring very seasonably. Several persons were sent from Madeira, to instruct the 

 Portuguese of St. Thomas in making the sugar whiter and harder. Collegao de 

 Noticias, p. 98. When the Dutch fleet, under Jol, took possession of St. Thomas 

 in 1641, those of the islanders who made terms with him, paid 5590 cruzados to pre- 

 serve their sugar-works. I notice these evidences of the supplies of sugar which the 

 Portuguese formerly drew from Western Africa, (throughout the interior of which, the 

 cane grows spontaneously and abundantly) from the impression that it may at some 

 future day become a question, whether the most effectual method of bringing about 

 the entire and positive cessation of the slave-trade, (or, to say the least, to give the 

 finishing stroke to it) and to forestal the great and growing advantages of Brazil, at 

 the same time, will not be to cultivate sugar under the protection of our African 

 settlements, where labour may be commanded at a low rate, to any extent. To en- 

 courage even this view — although it would annihilate a commerce insulting to the 

 Almighty, and criminal even in the mere toleration, and hasten the tardy civihzation 

 of those, to whom we have yet to atone for ages of cruelty and wrong ; — to encourage 



