216 
Coffee Manufacture, 
harvesting commences, the ripe beans in the meantime being carefully 
picked daily. When the labourers have loaded a puntful this is taken to 
the mill, where the beans are gradually poured into a box raised high up: 
they fall out of this through an opening on to a roller which, supplied 
all the way round with longitudinal strips of beaten copper, turns in a 
half cylinder of wood that is grooved on the inside and lined with copper 
bars. By means of a winch at each end of the roller this is turned on 
its own axis and the beans in the narrow space between the roller and the 
half cylinder are thereby hulled. From here the soft squashy mass 
passes over into a long guttering fixed at a height of about four feet from 
the ground down the bottom of which runs an equally long slit: this 
guttering is covered by laths laid on top in such a way that on both 
sides there is left open a space through which the hands of several 
labourers, generally women, press the hulled beans through the slit, and 
the pulpy mass thus kneaded in the guttering is shoved on to her neigh- 
bour who manipulates it again. Below the guttering runs a stone 
channel filled with water into which the beans fall and where they are 
completely rinsed of the slimy stuff still sticking to them. All beans 
that float on the water, the so-called “drift” or “waste” coffee, are 
separated from those that sink : those still remaining behind in the 
pulpy mass are subsequently separated from it and put aside with the 
drift. Directly connected with the mill is the drier that consisted of a 
brick pavement more than 200 feet long and about 80 feet wide, raised 
towards its middle, supplied with a number of three-inch wide gutters 
and having a six-inch raised edging around the whole of it: when rain 
falls the water escapes by way of the former. The beans after the wash- 
ing are spread out on the pavement to dry, after which they are poured 
on to the floors of the coffee-logie directly adjoining. This consists of 
a big building with three to four airy floors, upon which the beans have 
to be continually turned, so that the coffee may not become somewhat 
musty and mouldy through the moisture still remaining. In the lower 
room of the coffee logie is to be seen the 40 foot long stamper, a huge 
tree trunk with a number of round holes sunk in it. When the coffee on 
the floor is completely dried it is once again poured in small quantities 
into these cavities, and pounded with wooden rammers to remove the 
fine outer skin, a process that has to be handled with the greatest care 
so that no beans may be crushed, and at the present time is generally 
carried out by stamping mills. Formerly the value of a coffee plantation 
of about 750 acres (300 Rhynland square roods to the acre) amounted 
when in good condition, to from 20 to 25,000 pounds sterling: after 
Emancipation it sank to from 4 to 5,000 pounds. 
680. Mr. Bach was born in Jever in Oldenburg and as a young fellow 
of sixteen without any means, came out to Demerara, where he obtained 
a billet as overseer on an estate. Thanks to his industry he acquired a 
considerable competency and subsequently bought L’Heureuse Aventure 
where he spent his time in cultivating the estate and pursuing his 
favourite study, botany: his voluminous library referring to this 
department of science was undoubtedly one of the choicest. In Mr. 
Bach's whole character and manner of living one could not deny the 
