Two Days in a Sugar Plantazon. 577 
proceeding. A man is stationed here to feed the rollers 
with canes handed up to him by a gang told off for the 
purpose, and as fast as the crushed canes come out of the 
other side of the mill, they are laid on a board, which, 
when it is loaded, is carried off by a girl on her head, 
to be spread out in the sun to dry and then stacked 
for fuel, another board being placed ready to receive 
the megass, as the crushed canes are termed. A third 
gang is employed to keep the fireman stationed at the cop- 
pers supplied with dry megass, so that altogether a large 
number of labourers are at work, comprising one stoker, 
one engine-driver, one mill-feeder, one to clear megass, four 
to hand canes, four to carry wet megass, four to carry dry 
megass to the fireman who keeps the coppers boiling, and 
five boilermen to skim the liquor, and to charge out the 
sugar, so it will readily be imagined, that all these together, 
with cutters in the fields, mule-boys loading the carts, and 
these last transporting them to the mill, present a very 
animated and noisy scene, and to add to this row the 
blacks indulge in curiously worded impromptu songs, sung 
to any tune that strikes them. 
But the list is by no means exhausted, for we have black- 
smiths and carpenters repairing carts, and making good 
all incidental wear and tear of plant, coopers making hogs- 
heads and tierces for the sugar and puncheons for the rum, 
and, lastly, in addition to those specified, there is another 
gang of old men and women hard at work cutting grass, 
or picking out and chopping the green cane tops for the 
cattle and mules. It is essential to use this precaution, 
for, if the season be dry, little green fodder can be pro- 
cured; the half-dry cane-tops are made palatable by mixing 
them with oil-cake, salt, and molasses. The mules get 
molasses and water to drink, which keeps them in very 
good condition; and as planters do not muzzle the ox that 
treads out the corn, the quadrupeds can keep up their 
strength and spirit by sucking the cool sweet juicy cane, 
which bipeds are also allowed to do, and are not at all in- 
disposed to avail themselves of the privilege. 
A protracted drought offers great disadvantages to the 
planter, especially if he has to take off his crop with water- 
power; but a wet season is worse, in fact, almost ruin, for 
the megass cannot be dried sufficiently to be used for fuel 
to boil the sugar. Under these circumstances, bamboo, 
and other firewood, must be cut in the adjoining forests, 
and mules employed to fetch in these substitutes, and all 
