NOTES OF A NATURALIST. 



of Lima. In company with an agreeable party of the 

 officers of two Itahan frigates then stationed at Callao. 

 we started by the railway which runs parallel to the 

 coast from Lima to Ancon and Chancay. At a station 

 about three miles from the hacienda, we left the main 

 line, and were conveyed to our destination on a private 

 line of railway belonging to the estate. This is a 

 tract of flat country about eight miles long by four in 

 breadth, extending to the base of the outermost spurs 

 of the Cordillera, and watered by a stream from the 

 higher range in the background. It is almost exclu- 

 sively devoted to sugar-cultivation, and in the large 

 buildings which we inspected the whole process of 

 extracting sugar and rum from the cane was proceed- 

 ing on a large scale, and with the aid of the most 

 complete machinery and apparatus. Although some 

 fifteen hundred workmen are employed upon the 

 works, it appeared as if human labour played but a 

 small part in the processes wherein steam power was 

 the chief agent. Trains of small trucks, laden with 

 sugar-cane cut to the right length, were drawn up an 

 incline, the contents of each tilted in turn into a huge 

 vat, wherein it was speedily crushed. We followed 

 the torrent of juice which constantly flowed from this 

 reservoir through a succession of large chambers until 

 it reached the final stage, in which, purified and con- 

 densed, it is at once converted into crystals of pure 

 sugar when thrown ofl" by the centrifugal action of a 

 rapidly revolving axis, while the colourless pellucid 

 product which is to furnish the rum of commerce was 

 conveyed into vessels whose dimensions would put to 

 shame the great tun of Heidelberg, 



