ON PALM SUGAR FROM INDIA. 
53 
per cent, to make it more solid, portable, and heavier (of 
course this is done by the natives, the most abominable set 
of rascals under the sun.) The same juices, before they 
ferment, form a cool and pleasant drink, toddy ; but if al- 
lowed to go on to vinous fermentation, become arrack, 
which is distilled. In India, all the palm plantations (toddy 
topes) used for the last two purposes, pay a duty to the 
Company of one rupee (Is. lOd.) each tree per year. 
At Cuddalore there are five sugar houses, the principal 
of which belongs to Viney and Cardoza of Pondicherry. 
Their plan is to dissolve the jaggary in water over a fire, at 
the same time mixing chunam, to check fermentation, with 
it ; after this it is strained through a filter of animal char- 
coal, again boiled, and strained through cotton bags. For 
the purposes of clarifying, they use eggs and chunam. When 
the syrup is of a proper consistence, it is put into wooden or 
earthen coolers, and the molasses allowed to drain off. To 
whiten it as much as possible, rum, or sometimes a fine 
syrup, is poured over the sugar whilst in the coolers; it is 
then exposed to the sun to dry, and lastly packed in gunny 
bags for exportation. It is never mixed with cane sugar. 
The sugar thus produced, I have no doubt, will eventually 
supercede the cane sugar. It can be manufactured at a less 
cost, and the palms affording it grow in abundance in all 
parts of the tropics, in a dry sandy soil, which would pro- 
duce nothing else of value. They require very little culti- 
vation — merely enough to keep the luxuriant vegetation 
from springing up into a jungle around them, and to re- 
move the numerous parasitical plants from their stems. Of 
course the sugar will improve in quality when more expe- 
rience has been gained in the way of making it — the oldest 
factory having been established only five years. The quan- 
tity produced I should think was about six thousand tons 
last year. The molasses are at present of little or no value 
in the English market, but two of the houses at Cuddalore* 
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