MANUFACTURE OF SUOAB. 29 



planted the cane to Madeira: from Madeira it passed to 

 the Canary Islands, where it was entirely unknown; for 

 the ' ferulae' of Juba, ' quse express liquorem fundunt potui 

 ucundum,' are euphorbias (the Tabayba dulce), and not, 

 as has been recently asserted,* sugar-canes. Twelve sugar- 

 manufactories (ingenios de azucar) were soon established 

 ji the island of Great Canary, in that of Palma, and between 

 Adexe, Icod, and Guarachico, in the island of Tenerifte. 

 Negroes were employed in this cultivation, and their de- 

 scendants still inhabit the grottos of Tiraxaua, in the 

 Great Canary. Since the sugar-cane has been transplanted 

 to the West Indies, and the New "World has given maize 

 to the Canaries, the cultivation of the latter has taken the 

 place of the cane at Tenerifte and the Great Canary. The 

 cane is now found only in the island of Palma, near Argual 

 and Tazacorte,f where it yields scarcely one thousand quin- 

 tals of sugar a year. The sugar-cane of the Canaries, which 

 Aiguilon transported to St. Domingo, was there cultivated 

 extensively as early as 1513, or during the six or seven 

 following years, under the auspices of the monks of St. 

 Jerome. Negroes were employed in this cultivation from 

 its commencement ; and in 1519 representations were made 

 to government, as in our own time, that the West India 

 Islands would be ruined and made desert, if slaves were 

 not conveyed thither annually from the coast of Guinea. 



For some years past the culture and preparation of sugar 

 has been much improved in Terra Firma ; and, as the pro- 

 cess of refining is prohibited by the laws at Jamaica, they 

 reckon on the fraudulent exportation of refined sugar to 

 the English colonies. But the consumption of the pro- 

 vinces of Venezuela, in papelon, and in raw sugar employed 

 in making chocolate and sweetmeats (dulces) is so enor- 

 mous, that the exportation has been hitherto entirely null. 

 The finest plantations of sugar are in the valleys of Aragua 

 and of the Tuy, near Pao de Zarate, between La Victoria 



On the origin of cane-sugar, in the Journal de Pharmacie, 1816, 

 p. 387. The Tabayba dulce is, according to Von Buch, the Euphorbia 

 balsamifera, the juice of which is neither corrosive nor bitter like that of 

 the cordon, or Euphorbia canariensis. 



f " Notice sur la Culture du Sucre dam lea Isle* Canariennes." by 

 Leopold von Buch. 



