264 



SUGAE MILL. 



town at the dry season of the year. The correjidor gave orders to a 

 eommissario to detain a crew in the morning, before the Indians started 

 for the chacras, so they might prepare their " farinha" for the voyage. 

 Yuca turns green, and rots in a few days in its natural state ; we will 

 be detained some days, while the women manufacture it into farinha ; 

 it is washed, pealed, and grated into a wooden trough ; after which it is 

 ground, or mashed by hand between two stones. Maize is often mixed 

 with it, by which it is much improved. After it is dried hard, the flour 

 lasts long enough for a voyage of a month. Cattle are scarce on thes8 

 prairies; a beef costs four dollars ; the crew require one for a start, but 

 as the meat keeps so short a time, they are dependent upon farinha, 

 and what they may pick up on the way. 



Don Antonio lost two of his animals on the passage, and from the 

 dry appearance of the pasture, he will lose the others. The correjidor 

 was unwilling to permit him to let them loose on the plain among other 

 cattle and horses; suffering with the worst stages of the disease, he 

 was fearful that they would affect those which had escaped. 



In the evening we met the Indians returning from the chacras, all 

 armed with bows and arrows. The tribes to the north are savages, and 

 very unfriendly towards the Cayavabos, who often whip their neighbors 

 when they misbehave themselves. They were loaded with yucas, plan- 

 tains, oranges, sugar-cane, alligator's eggs, and with the only farming 

 tool they use, a small iron shovel, attached to a long straight handle. 



The sugar mill is going all night long ; several pairs of oxen are kept 

 ready, and as soon as one becomes tired, a fresh pair is hitched in ; the 

 boy that thrusts the cane between three perpendicular cogged cylin- 

 ders, and the driver of the team, often fall asleep at work, but are kept 

 at it by those put over them to keep the mill going. The mill and oxen 

 all belong to the State, as well as the chacra, from which this cane came. 

 After the Indians have manufactured the government's sugar and rum, 

 then the mill is loaned to them, and their own oxen are hitched to. 

 The fixed stipend of the Church and State officers of the Beni are paid 

 by the income from these government sugar patches, worked gratis by 

 the Indians under orders from the authorities. 



The market price of sugar, in the town of Exaltacion, is one real per 

 pound. A quantity of fresh juice is drank like new cider ; it is called 

 guarapo ; the Indians are very fond of it. They make wry faces at 

 aguadiente, but naturally take to chicha. An Indian always " acknow- 

 ledges the corn^ There are three kinds of sugar-cane here. The 

 largest sized white cane is considered the least valuable ; the sweetest 

 and best quality is the small white stalk. The third kind has a dark 



