154 



SUGAR. 



into a rude resemblance of a human head, was regarded as a deity, 

 which enabled the ancestor of the poor ryot of the present day to 

 obtain the juice which would yield the much-prized sweet crystals. 

 Into the hole representing the mouth of the figure, or into one made 

 lower down, was inserted the end of a long pole, which served as a 

 lever to crush the juice from a piece of cane placed between it and 

 the stump.* The Buck Indians or Caribs of British Guiana, it is 

 curious to remark, now employ an almost exactly similar contrivance 

 for a like purpose, f 



This ineffective method gave place to one by which the juice was 

 crushed out in a mortar. The primitive mill still used in Dinajpur 

 is an adaptation of this plan, and is constructed as follows. A sound 

 tamarind tree being selected, it is cut down at about two feet from the 

 ground, where it may be a foot and a half or more in diameter. The 

 stump is then hollowed out in the form of a mortar, and from the 

 bottom of the hollow a hole is bored a little way perpendicularly. 

 The exterior of the stump is next pierced by a hole which meets the 

 previous boring obliquely, and thus affords an outlet for the juice, 

 which runs into a strainer fixed over an earthen pot sunk in the 

 ground amongst the roots of the tree. The pestle, it is to be observed, 

 does not pound the pieces of cane, but crushes or squeezes them. It 

 consists of the trunk of a tree some 18 or 20 feet in length, and about 

 a foot in diameter, rounded off at the larger end, which is placed in 

 the hollow of the mortar in an inclined position. A pair of oxen are 

 yoked to a horizontal pole, which is supported at the outer end by a 

 bamboo hanging by a notch made in the root end from the upper and 

 smaller end of the long pestle, while the other end is attached by a 

 loop to a bamboo hoop which encircles the stump, and thus acts as a 

 runner. The pestle, therefore, forms a double-armed lever, the ful- 

 crum of which is situated at the edge of the mortar, the cane being 

 crushed between the sides of the pestle and mortar respectively. The 

 force with which the pestle acts is increased by the driver sitting 

 upon the outer extremity of the horizontal pole, and sometimes by 

 M-eights being added. Such a machine, however, is totally ineffectual 

 to crush the cane until it has been first cut into small pieces. To 

 this end a bamboo stake is driven firmly into the ground, and a deep 

 notch made in the end projecting upwards. The attendant i)asses the 

 canes through this notch, which slits them longitudinally, while he 

 cuts off the slit canes, in lengths of about a foot each, with a rude 

 chopper. 



The sugar mill of Chinapatam is a slight improvement. Instead 

 of the standing stump of a tree being used, which could only be done 

 when a suitable tree grew on the desired spot, the mortar is carefully 

 fashioned out of the trunk of a tree some 10 feet long, 8 feet of 

 which is firmly embedded in the ground. The hollow, for two-thirds 

 of the depth, is in the shape of an inverted truncated cone, the 



* The STigar-cane appears to be referred to in the Rig- Veda, probably the most 

 ancient work known in the world, and in the Mahabharata. The Agni-Purana also 

 contains a reference to the art of sugar-boiling. 



t Kev. W. H. Brett's ' Indian Tribes of Guiana ' contains a coloured plate repre- 

 senting Caribs crushing sugar-cane in this manner. 



