THE ADVENTURES OF A YOUNG NATURALIST. 



uated in a wide rotunda. Here two upright wooden cylin- 

 ders, fitting close to one another, revolved on a pivot, set 

 in action by means of two oxen yoked together, crushing 

 the canes which an Aztec* was introducing between them. 

 The machine groaned, and seemed almost ready to fall to 

 pieces under the impetus of the powerful animals, which 

 were urged on both by voice and gesture. Lucien remark- 

 ed that the canes were cut in lengths of about a yard, and 

 bevelled off at the ends, so as to be more readily caught 

 between the two cylinders. After having been subjected 

 to this heavy pressure, they came out squeezed almost dry, 

 and the sweet juice, or sirup, flowed down into a large 

 trough hollowed out of the trunk of a tree. 



As soon as this receptacle was full of juice, an enormous 

 valve was opened, and the turbid, muddy-looking liquid 

 flowed along a trench, and emptied into a brick reservoir. 

 On its way it passed through the meshes of a coarse bag, 

 and was thus roughly filtered ; it was then conveyed into 

 immense coppers placed over a hot furnace. The frag- 

 ments of crushed cane, having been rapidly dried in the 

 sun, were used to feed the fire which boiled the juice so 

 lately squeezed out of them. 



Near the aloe-fibre filtering-bag, in front of which the 

 morsels of cane and rubbish constantly accumulated, stood 

 a little boy about twelve years old, whose duty it was to 

 keep the passage clear. Lucien pulled my coat, to call my 

 attention to the fact that the lad had only one arm. 



* Two grotesque little phenomena were once shown in London and 

 Paris as specimens of the Aztec race. When I speak of Aztecs, my 

 young readers may perhaps think I allude to these dwarfs. I will there- 

 fore state, once for all, that this name is intended to apply only to the In- 

 dians, the descendants of the fine race over whom Montezuma was empe- 

 ror when Cortez conquered them. By Mexicans, or Creoles, we mean the 

 descendants of the Spanish race. 



