WEST INDIES. 509 



very violent when they happen, and the hail stones very large and 

 heavy. 



It is in the rainy season (principally in the month of August, more 

 rarely in July and September) that they are assaulted by hurricanes, 

 Uie most terrible calamity to which they are subject from the climate ; 

 these destroy, at a stroke, the labours of many years, and prostrate 

 tiie hopes of the planter olten just at the moment when he thinks him- 

 self out of the reach of fortune. The hurricane is a sudden and 

 violent storm of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, attended with a 

 furious swelling of the seas, and sometimes with an earthquake; in 

 short, with every circumstance which the elements can assemble, that 

 is terrible and destructive. First, they see, as the prelude to the en- 

 suing havoc, whole helds of sugar-canes whirled into the air, and 

 scattered over the face of the country ; the strongest trees of the 

 forests are torn up by the roots, and driven about like stubble ; their 

 wind-mills are swept away in a moment ; their utensils, the fixtures, 

 the ponderous copper boilers, and stills of several hundred weight, 

 are wrenched from the ground, and battered to pieces; their houses 

 are no protection ; the roofs are torn off at one blast; whilst the rain 

 which in an hour rises five feet, rushes in upon them with irresistible 

 violence. 



The grand staple commodity of the West Indies is sugar: this 

 commodity was not known to the Greeks and Romans, though it was 

 made in China in very early times, from whence we had the first know- 

 ledge of it ; but the Portuguese were the first who cultivated it in 

 America, and brought it into request, as one of the materials of a 

 very universal luxury in Europe. It is not agreed whether the cane 

 from which this substance is extracted, be a native of America, or 

 brought thither, to their colony of Brazil, by the Portuguese, from 

 India and the coast of Africa; but, however that may be, in early 

 limes they made the most, as they still do the best sugars which come 

 to market in this part of the world. The juice within the sugarcane 

 is the most lively and least cloying sweet in nature, and, sucked raw, 

 has proved extremely nutritive and wholesome. From the molasses, 

 rum is distilled, and from the scummings of sugar, a meaner spirit is 

 procured. Rum finds its principal market in the United States, 

 where it is consumed by the inhabitants, or re-exported. However, 

 a very great quantity of molasses is taken off raw, and carried to New 

 England to be distilled there. The lops of the canes, and the leaves 

 which grow upon the joints, make very good provender for cattle; 

 and the refuse of the cane, after grinding, serves for fire ; so that no 

 part of this excellent plant is without its use. 



It is computed that, when things are well managed, the rum and 

 molasses pay the charges of the plantation, and the sugars are clear 

 gain. However, by the particulars we have seen, and by others which 

 we may easily imagine, the txpences of a plantation in the West In- 

 dies are very great, and the profits, at the first view, precarious: for 

 the chargeable articles of the wind-mill, the boiling, cooling, and dis- 

 tilling houses, and the buying and subsisting a suitable number of 

 slaves and cattle, will not suffer any man to begin a sugar plantation 

 of any consequence, not to mention the purchase of the land, which 

 is very high, under a capital of at least 25,000 dollars. There are, 

 however, no parts of the world in which great estates are made in so 

 short a time, from the productions of the earth, as in the West In- 

 dies. The produce of a few good seasons generally provides against 



Vol. II. 3 T 



