The L'altivaUon of (in: tiuqar-Cane. 



87 



THE BOILING-HOUSE OX A SUGAR ESTATE. 



onougli to \xnx grog for the entire British navy, with enough to spare for 

 the army too. Is it possible that the Governor-General of India and his 

 lady can be coming to take breakfast in this beautiful clean hall, and 

 have a dance afterwards ? They might very well be entertained in a dir- 

 tier place. All that is wanted are mats and cushions for the company, 

 and a few garlands of fiov.ers. 



Reader, this is the boiling-house of the Pamplemousse sugar estate; 

 and the neat looking dapper gentleman, with the light wand in his hand, 

 is not the master of the ceremonies, as I imagined, but the boiling-master 

 of the establishment. The bright shining coppers are becoming hot and 

 steamy ; their contents are thickening gradually, whilst in one or two the 

 operation of skimming commences, in order to remove the foreign matter 

 which rises to the surface during the boiling. 



The dapper master of the ceremonies clasps his hands, and half a dozen 

 coolies, as clean as himself, glide in from some invisible corner — I almost 

 fancied they came out of one of the large vats — and without so much as 

 a word spoken, tiltpd up, by some unseen machinery, one of the hissing, 

 boiling caldrons of sugar juice, and away it went into another caldron 

 rather brighter than the others. The party of mutes having performed 

 this, shifted a number of the other pans, allowed some more fresh liquor 

 to flow in from a vat near the mill-house, a: d at length, bv the aid of more 

 chains and pulleys, that l<X)ked like insfrnmenta of torluro, they contrived 



