VARIETIES OF THE IMPHEE. 205 
and eventually testing the saccharine value of their 
juices, and making sugar from them all in large 
quantities. 
“ Vim-bis-chu-a-pa.”—This is the largest size, and the 
tallest of the whole; whilst it is full of juice, and very 
sweet. When planted in rich alluvial soil it attains its 
greatest size and most perfect development, requiring 
from four to five months to arrive at maturity. It grows 
to a height of from ten to fifteen feet, is from one and a 
half to two inches in diameter at the lower end of the 
stalk, and usually cracks or splits as it ripens. By 
means of a most primitive and ill-constructed little wooden 
mill, I obtained sixty per cent. of juice from the stalks. 
This juice was clean and clear, and the saccharometer 
showed it to contain fourteen per cent. of sugar, after I 
had removed the fecule by means of cold defecation. 
The sugar it yielded was fully equal to the best cane 
sugar of the West Indies. The stalks, carefully weighed, 
were found to vary from one and a half to two and a 
half pounds English weight each, trimmed ready for the 
mill. The seed-head, which is very large and beautiful, 
is generally from twelve to eighteen inches in length, 
containing many thousands of fine plump seeds, of a 
sandy yellow color, strongly held by a sheath which 
partially envelops them. 
‘* H-a-na-moodee” is the next in size, and is very simi- 
lar, both in habit and value, to the last. It attains a 
height of twelve to thirteen feet, but is not so coarse in 
appearance, nor does it contain so much woody fiber as 
the Vim-bis-chu-a-pa, but it is rather softer and more 
juicy, I having obtained from it sixty-four per cent. of 
