156 SUGAR-MILL. [CHAP. XXIX. 



Ganges, the Hoogly is fast sweeping away the cele 

 brated field of Plassy. 



At one of the landings on the left bank of the river, 

 Dr, Carpenter went with me to see a large sugar-mill, 

 in the management of which an Anglo-American 

 proprietor had introduced all the latest improvements. 

 There was machinery, worked by steam, for pressing 

 the juice out of the sugar-canes, and large boilers and 

 coolers, with ducts for the juice to flow down into 

 enormous vats. 



&quot;VYe heard much of the injury done to the sugar 

 plantations and gardens by the cocoa, or nut grass 

 ( Cypcrus hydra), which I had seen springing up even 

 in the streets of New Orleans, between the pavement 

 stones. It increases by suckers as well as by seed ; 

 but it is only of late years that it has ravaged 

 Louisiana. If horses be brought from an estate 

 where this plant is known to exist, their hoofs are 

 carefully cleaned, lest the soil adhering to them should 

 introduce some fibres or tubers of this scourge. 



Although impatient to return to the city, we could 

 not help being amused when we learnt that our boat 

 and all its passengers were to be detained till some 

 hogsheads of sugar were put on board, some of the 

 hoops of which had got loose. A cooper had been 

 sent for, who was to hammer them on. &quot; You may 

 therefore go over the sugar-mill at your leisure.&quot; I 

 observed that all whose native tongue was English, 

 were indignant at the small value which the captain 

 seemed to set on their time ; but the Creole majority, 

 who spoke French, were in excellent humour. A 

 party of them was always playing whist in the cabin, 



