260 humboldt's cub a. 



consequently, including the interest on capital, and 

 throwing off the holidays, the cost of labor is a little 

 more than twenty-five cents a day. The slaves are 

 supplied with jerked beef from Buenos Ayres and 

 Caraccas, and salt fish, when meat is dear; with 

 vegetables, such as plantains, pumpkins, sweet pota- 

 toes, potatoes, and corn. In the year 1804, jerked 

 beef was worth 5 to 6 cents a pound in Guines, and 

 in 1825, its cost is from 7 to 8 cents. 



On a sugar plantation such as we are describing, 

 producing 2,000 or 2,500 boxes of sugar, there are 

 required, 1st, three cylinder mills, worked by oxen 

 or water-power ; 2d, eighteen kettles, according to 

 the old Spanish method, which, having a very slow 

 fire, burns much wood ; and according to the 

 French method, introduced in 1801, by Bailli, from 

 St. Domingo, under the auspices of Don JSTicolas 

 Calvo, three clarifiers, three large kettles, and two 

 boiling trains (each having three boilers), in all, 

 twelve pieces. It is generally said that seventy-five 

 pounds of purged sugar yields one keg (seven gal- 

 lons) of molasses ; and that this, with the refuse 

 sugar, covers the expenses of the plantation ; but 

 this can be true only where large quantities of rum 

 are made. Two thousand boxes of sugar give 15,000 

 kegs of molasses, which will make 500 pipes of rum, 

 worth $25 each. 



