486 
SPECIES OE T1IE SUGAR-CANE. 
married provide food for themselves; and here, as everyw kero 
else in the vallevs of Aragua, a small spot of ground is al- 
lotted to them to cultivate. They labour on that ground on 
Saturdays and Sundays, the only days in the week on which 
they are free. They keep poultry, and sometimes even a 
pig! Their masters boast of their happiness, as in the north 
of Europe the great landholders love to descant upon the 
ease enjoyed by peasants who are attached to the glebe. On 
the day of our arrival we saw three fugitive negroes brought 
back ; they were slaves newly purchased. I dreaded having 
to witness one of those punishments which, wherever 
slavery prevails, destroys all the charm of a country life. 
Happily these blacks were treated with humanity. 
In this plantation, as in all those of the province of 
Venezuela, three species of sugar-cane can be distinguished 
even at a distance by the colour of their leaves ; the old 
Creole sugar-cane, the Otaheite cane, and the Batavia cane. 
The first has a deep-green leaf, the stem not very thick, and 
the knots rather near together. This sugar-cane was the 
first introduced from India into Sicily, the Canary Islands, 
and West Indies. The second is of a lighter green ; and its 
stem is higher, thicker, and more succulent. The whole 
plant exhibits a more luxuriant vegetation. Wc owe this 
plant to the voyages of Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh. 
Bougainville carried it to the Mauritius, whence it passed to 
Cayenne, Martinique, and, since 1792, to the rest of the 
AVest India Islands. The sugar-cane of Otaheite, called by 
the people of that islaud To, is one of the most important 
acquisitions for which colonial agriculture is indebted to the 
travels of naturalists. It yields not only one-third more 
juice than the crcolian cane on the same space of ground ; 
but from the thickness of its stem, and the tenacity of its 
ligneous fibres, it furnishes much more fuel. This last 
advantage is important in the West Indies, where the 
destruction of the forests has long obliged the planters to 
use canes deprived of juice, to keep up the fire under the 
boilers. But for the knowledge of this new plant, together 
with the progress of agriculture on the continent of Spanish 
America, and the introduction of the East Indin and Java 
simar, the prices of colonial produce in Europe would have 
been much more sensibly affected by tbo revolutions of St. 
