28 
CITJ.TTV A.TTON OF THE CANE. 
hundred or two hundred and forty piastres a-year. The 
creole cane and the cane of Otaheite* are planted in the 
month of April, the first at four, the second at fire feet 
distance. The cane ripens in fourteen months. It flowers 
in the month of October, if the plant be sufficiently vigo- 
rous ; but the top is cut oft’ before the panicle unfolds. 
In all the monocotvledonous plants (for example, the ma- 
guey cultivated at Mexico for extracting pulque, the wine- 
yielding palm-tree, and the sugar-cane), the flowering alters 
the quality of the juices. The preparation of sugar, the 
boiling, and the claying, are very imperfect in Terra Firm a, 
because it is made only for home consumption; and for 
wholesale, papelon is preferred to sugar, either refined or 
raw. This papelon is an impure sugar, in the form of little 
loaves, of a yellow-brown colour. It contains a mixture of 
molasses and mucilaginous matter. The poorest man eats 
papelon , as in Europe he eats cheese. It is believed to have 
nutritive qualities. Fermented with water it yields the 
yiiarapo, the favourite beverage of the people. In the pro- 
vince of Caracas subcarbonate of potash is used, instead of 
lime, to purify the juice of the sugar-cane. The ashes of 
the lueare, which is the Erythrina eorallodendrum, are pre- 
ferred. 
The sugar-cane was introduced very late, probably towards 
the end of the sixteenth century, from the West India 
Islands, into the valleys of Aragua. It was known in India, 
in China, and in all the islands of the Pacific, from the 
most remote antiquity; and it was planted at Kliorassan, in 
Persia, as early as tlie fifth century of our era, in order to 
obtain from it solid sugar .f The Arabs carried this reed, 
so useful to the inhabitants of hot and temperate countries, 
to the shores of the Mediterranean. In 130G, its culti- 
vation was yet unknown in Sicily; but was already common 
in the island of Cyprus, at Bhodes, and in the Morea. A 
hundred years after it enriched Calabria, Sicily, and the 
coasts of Spain. From Sicily the Infante Don Henry trans- 
* In the island of Palma, where in the latitude of 29" the sugar-cane 
is said to be cultivated as high as 140 toises above the level of the 
Atlantic, the Otaheite cane requires more heat than the Creole cane. 
t The Indian name for the sugar-cane is sharkara . Thence tiie word 
evgar. 
