126 A NATURALIST IN THE GUI AN AS 



CHAPTER • IX 



LA PRISION 



Manufacture of sugar — Method of packing — Molasses and stills — Trade — 

 Cabbage palm and grub — Faculties of insects— Hunting and fishing — 

 Fishing with dynamite — Rise and fall of the Caura — Voracious fish — 

 In dreamland. 



The clearing at La Prision is fairly large, and is planted 

 principally in rice, sugar-cane, and tobacco. Bananas, 

 cassava, sweet potatoes, yams, and corn are grown in 

 sufficient quantities to meet the wants of the people. 

 From the sugar-cane a good deal of the coarse brown 

 sugar known as papelon is made. The cane is crushed 

 by vertical rollers worked by cattle in the very crudest 

 fashion, the mill being the property of Jose Gregorio 

 Medina, who also owns most of the land under cultivation. 

 It is indicative of the lack of ideas on the part of these 

 people that a man was employed during a considerable 

 part of the day carrying the cane-juice in a large calabash 

 from the trough near the crusher to the boiling-place. 

 The simple expedient of a piece of bamboo for running 

 the juice to the cauldron had never been thought of, 

 although it was immediately put into practice when I 

 suggested it. The juice is boiled in cauldrons, quicklime 

 being added from time to time to assist in thickening the 

 syrup, which is transferred when it begins to harden to 

 shallow wooden troughs, where the lumps are broken up 

 by means of paddle-shaped pieces of wood, and the whole 



