QUICACAN. 



119 



His account of the seeking and gathering of Peruvian bark was exceed- 

 ingly interesting; and I should judge that it is an occupation which 

 involves much fatigue and exposure. He spoke very highly of the 

 mechanical abilities of my countryman, Miguel Hacket, and gave me a 

 letter to deliver to him wherever I might find him. 



I also had some talk with quite a pretty young woman, who had come 

 from Quito by the way of the Pastaza, Maraiion, and Huallaga rivers. 

 She said she was scared at the malos pasos, or rapids of the river, and 

 never could relish monkey soup; but what gave her most uneasiness 

 was the polite attention of the Huambisas Indians. She declared that 

 this was frightful, and swore a good round oath, (that might have satisfied 

 Hotspur in a lady,) " Caramba! but they were mad for a white wife." 

 Report here says that she prefers Yankee to Indian, and is about to 

 bestow her hand upon a long countryman of ours, the head blacksmith, 

 named Blake. 



July 16. — Dyer had put me into a wide "four-poster." None but a 

 traveller in these parts can imagine the intense pleasure with which I 

 took off my clothes and stretched my weary limbs between linen sheets, 

 and laid my head upon a pillow with a frilled case to it. I could 

 scarcely sleep for the enjoyment of the luxury. -Rest, too, has renewed 

 my beast; and the little black, which I thought last night was entirely 

 done up, is this morning as lively as a filly. 



The sugar-mill of Quicacan is composed of an overshot wheel, turned 

 by a race brought from the river far above, and giving motion to three 

 heavy brass cylinders that crush the cane between them. The juice 

 falls into a receptacle below, and is led off by a trough to the boilers, 

 which are arranged in order over the furnaces like a common kitchen 

 range. After a certain amount of boiling, it is poured by means of 

 ladles into wooden moulds, greased and laid on the ground in rows. 

 This makes the chancaca, so much used throughout Peru. It supplies 

 the place, in this country, to the lower classes, which the wares of candy 

 shops do in our own. Two of the moulds are put together and envel- 

 oped in the leaf of the cane. They make a pound, and are sold at the 

 hacienda for six and a quarter cents. 



Cutting the cane, bringing it in, stripping it and cutting off the tops, 

 supplying the mill, boiling the sugar, and making the chancaca, em- 

 ploy about twenty men and four mules. With this force one hundred 

 dollars' worth of chancaca may be made in a day ; but Mr. Dyer 

 says that he is not now making more than twenty or thirty dollars, and 

 not paying his expenses. He attributes this to the fact that his fields 

 are wearing out and require replanting. He thinks that cane should be 



