Adventures of a Young Naturalist

"Yes, to be sure. Good-bye, Antonio, till we meet again!"

"Till we meet again? By my word, you shall not say that just yet. The goodwife has some eggs and fried beans ready for breakfast; and I ought to have some bottles of Spanish wine, in which we'll drink to your pleasant journey, unless you're too proud to accept the hospitality of a poor man."

Being very hungry, with pleasure we accepted this cordial invitation. The steward further insisted upon taking our little traveller up in front of him. The child was only too pleased.

"Oh dear!" said Sumichrast; "why, it's spoiling the boy at the outset."

"It will be half a league the less for his poor legs," said Antonio; and, spurring his horse, he galloped off with Lucien to get our breakfast ready.

Gringalet was in consternation at his young master's departure. Raising his intelligent face, he seemed as if he wished to question us, and pricked up his ears as if to listen to the sound of the horse's feet dying away in the distance. At last he raised a plaintive howl, and started off in pursuit.

Surprised at not seeing l'Encuerado, I turned back, fancying he had remained behind. I was expecting to see him appear, when Sumichrast burst out laughing. At a turn of the road he had caught a sight of the horseman, with the dog on one side and the Indian on the other, who, in spite of his load, kept up without difficulty.

This feat on the part of my servant did not much surprise me, for I do not think that in the whole world there are any more indefatigable runners than the Mistec Indians.

At twelve o'clock, just as the bell was calling home the laborers, I entered the courtyard of the sugar-mill, where I caught sight of my youngster sitting on the ground, with his dog at his feet, looking with rapture at some ducks that were enjoying themselves in a muddy pool.

CHAPTER II

SUGAR. – GRINGALET IN THE MOLASSES TANK. – L'ENCUERADO'S OBSTINATE IDEA. – AN INDIAN SUPPER

The breakfast was a cheerful one, thanks to the Spanish wine spoken of by our host. The Indian laborers, with their wives and children, assembled in inquisitive groups round the windows of the dwelling. Lucien certainly carried the day, for he it was that they chiefly sought to see. As for Gringalet, he was much less cordially received by his brother-dogs belonging to the place; consequently, he scarcely left his young master's side, and showed his teeth incessantly.

Sumichrast wishing, before we set out again, to explain to his pupil how sugar was made, took him to the mill, situated in a wide rotunda. Here two upright wooden cylinders, fitting close to one another, revolved on a pivot, set in action by means of two oxen yoked together, crushing the canes which an Aztec[3 - Two grotesque little phenomena were once shown in London and Paris as specimens of the Aztec race. When I speak of Aztecs, my young readers may perhaps think I allude to these dwarfs. I will therefore state, once for all, that this name is intended to apply only to the Indians, the descendants of the fine race over whom Montezuma was emperor when Cortez conquered them. By Mexicans, or Creoles, we mean the descendants of the Spanish race.] was introducing between them. The machine groaned, and seemed almost ready to fall to pieces under the impetus of the powerful animals, which were urged on both by voice and gesture. Lucien remarked that the canes were cut in lengths of about a yard, and bevelled off at the ends, so as to be more readily caught between the two cylinders. After having been subjected to this heavy pressure, they came out squeezed almost dry, and the sweet juice, or sirup, flowed down into a large trough hollowed out of the trunk of a tree.

As soon as this receptacle was full of juice, an enormous valve was opened, and the turbid, muddy-looking liquid flowed along a trench, and emptied into a brick reservoir. On its way it passed through the meshes of a coarse bag, and was thus roughly filtered; it was then conveyed into immense coppers placed over a hot furnace. The fragments of crushed cane, having been rapidly dried in the sun, were used to feed the fire which boiled the juice so lately squeezed out of them.

Near the aloe-fibre filtering-bag, in front of which the morsels of cane and rubbish constantly accumulated, stood a little boy about twelve years old, whose duty it was to keep the passage clear. Lucien pulled my coat, to call my attention to the fact that the lad had only one arm.

"How did you lose your left arm, pobricito?" I asked.

"Between the crushers, señor."

"Was it your own fault?"

"Alas! yes. My father looked after the machine, and I helped him to drive the oxen; and he had forbidden my going near the cylinders. One day he went away for a few minutes, and I tried to put a piece of cane between the rollers; but my finger caught, and my arm was drawn in and crushed."

"It was a terrible punishment for your disobedience," I said.

"More terrible than you think, señor. My father died six months ago, and I have several little brothers. If I had both my arms, I could earn a quarter of a piastre a day, and also help my mother."

"How much do they give you for watching this filtering-bag from morning till night?"

"Only a medio,"[4 - About threepence.] he answered.

I looked hard at Lucien, who threw himself into my arms.

"Oh! I will always obey you," he cried, with emotion; "but do allow me to give all the money in my purse to this little boy."

"Give him a piastre, my boy; we shall meet with others in want, and you must reserve something for them."

"Oh! young gentleman," said the poor mutilated lad, looking with wonder at the coin which represented sixteen days' work, "we will all pray for you!"

And he hurried to clear out the bag, which was already too full.

The process adopted in the sugar-mill we speak of was of most primitive simplicity. The European manufacturers employ iron cylinders turned by steam or water power; also lift and force pumps, which quickly convey the sap into the basins in which it is to be clarified by fermentation.

But for comprehending easily all the operations required in the extraction of sugar, Antonio's hacienda, in which every thing was done before our eyes, was much preferable to any of the modern mills provided with all kinds of improved apparatus.

When our young traveller saw the thick, muddy, and turbid liquid, which was being stirred up by a gigantic "agitator," he could hardly believe that it could ever produce the beautiful white crystal with which he was so well acquainted.

"But where's the sugar?" he eagerly asked.

"There, in front of you," replied Sumichrast. "The sugar-cane, like all other vegetables, contains a certain quantity of liquid, in which the sugar is held in a state of solution; if this is removed, prismatic crystals immediately form. Look now! the contents of the copper are just beginning to boil, and are covered with a blackish scum, which is carefully skimmed off; for in three or four days, when it has fermented, it will produce, by means of distillation, the ardent spirit which l'Encuerado is so fond of. The cloud of steam which is rising above the copper shows that the juice is evaporating; in a few minutes more it will be converted into sirup, and will ultimately form crystals. Come and see the result of the last operation."

We entered a large gallery, in which a number of moulds – made of baked earth and shaped like reversed sugar-loaves – were ranged in lines under the beams, like bottles in a bottle-rack. Into these, which had been previously moistened, some laborers were pouring the boiling sirup. A little farther on we were shown what had been boiled the day before, and was crystallizing, assisted in the process by an Indian, who stirred it slowly. From a trough, open at the lower end, a thick liquid was flowing, called "molasses," or treacle, which is used for making rum, gingerbread, and for other purposes. The lowest part of the sugar-loaf seemed, also, to be yellow and sticky.

Passing through a dark passage, Lucien noticed two half-naked laborers, who were moistening clay and converting it into a kind of dough.

"What a nasty mess!" he cried, with a self-satisfied tone. "What would mamma say, if she was here? It was only the other day she gave my brother and sister a good scolding."

"What was it for?" I asked.

"For mixing up mud to build a town and reservoir in the long passage in our house."

"What part did you take in it?"

"Oh, I was architect; but I was scolded as much as the others."

"That I can readily believe," replied Sumichrast, who could hardly keep his gravity; "but come, let us follow these laborers, and you will soon see that they are not mixing up this mud for mere pleasure."

To his great surprise, our little traveller saw them filling up, with a dark-colored liquid, the empty part of the moulds, from which the molasses had drained away.

"They are spoiling the sugar-loaves!" he cried.

"Quite the contrary; they are going to whiten it. The water that is contained in the clay will filter gradually through the sugar, and will drive before it the molasses that is left round the crystals; and this operation, several times repeated, will produce that spongy kind of sugar which is well known to retain a flavor of the cane, rather disliked by Europeans accustomed to the finer products of their refineries."

The only department we now had to visit was the "drying-room," where the sugar-loaves are piled up to dry, and wait for a purchaser.

In our way thither we nearly fell into an immense reservoir, level with the surface of the ground, and full of molasses; the scum floating on the top so exactly resembled the rough and sticky floor of the sugar-mill that it was easy to make a mistake. Gringalet was unfortunate enough to be the cause of our avoiding this accident. Restless, like all his kind, he ran smelling about in every direction, just as if he was trying to find some lost object: forcing his way between our legs, to get in front of us, he suddenly disappeared in the thick liquid. I pulled him out directly; but as soon as he was on his feet, he rolled over and over on the ground, so that when he stood up his coat was bristling with pieces of straw and wood; in fact, he scarcely looked like a dog at all. I called him towards the pond outside, but the poor brute was quite blind and confused, and did not seem to hear. As a matter of course, all the laborers raised shouts of laughter; but poor Lucien, fancying that his dog was going to die, followed him in despair. Gringalet, no doubt wishing to comfort his young master, leaped upon him and covered him with caresses, and of course with saccharine matter, in which he so lately had a bath. As it was too late for any other course, I made up my mind to laugh, like every one else. While l'Encuerado was washing the dog, our hostess cleaned the boy's clothes, soon after which we resumed our journey.

Don Antonio, like a real Mexican, pitied us for having to travel on foot like Indians; he especially commiserated our young companion, and thought, indeed, that we were very cruel.

"He must learn to use his legs; that's the reason why God gave them to him," said Sumichrast, who delighted in an argument with the steward.

"What good are horses, then?"

"To break your neck. Besides, there are plenty of infirmities in life without making one out of the horse."