each is finished. From the last caldron, where its
complete crystallization is effected, it is transferred to coolers,
which are large, shallow pans. When fully cooled, it looks like brown
sugar and molasses mixed. It is then shovelled from the coolers into
hogsheads. These hogsheads have holes bored in their bottoms; and, to
facilitate the drainage, strips of cane are placed in the hogshead, with
their ends in these holes, and the hogs-head is filled. The hogsheads
are set on open frames, under which are copper receivers, on an inclined
plane, to catch and carry off the drippings from the hogsheads. These
drippings are the molasses, which is collected and put into tight casks.

I believe I have given the entire process. When it is remembered that
all this, in every stage, is going on at once, within the limits of the
mill, it may well be supposed to present a busy scene. The smell of
juice and of sugar-vapor, in all its stages, is intense. The Negroes
fatten on it. The clank of the engine, the steady grind of the machines,
and the high, wild cry of the Negroes at the caldrons to the stokers at
the furnace doors, as they chant out their directions or wants--now for
more fire, and now to scatter the fire--which must be heard above the
din, "A-a-b'la! A-a-b'la!" "E-e-cha candela!" "Pu-er-ta!", and the
barbaric African chant and chorus of the gang at work filling the
cane-troughs--all these make the first visit at the sugar-house a
strange experience. But after one or two visits, the monotony is as
tiresome as the first view is exciting. There is, literally, no change
in the work. There are the same noises of the machines, the same cries
from Negroes at the same spots, the same intensely sweet smell, the same
state of the work in all its stages, at whatever hour you visit it,
whether in the morning, or evening, at midnight, or at the dawn of the
day. If you wake up at night, you hear the "A-a-b'la! A-a-b'la!"
"E-e-cha! E-e-cha!" of the caldron-men crying to the stokers, and the
high, monotonous chant of the gangs filling the wagons or the trough, a
short, improvisated stave, and then the chorus--not a tune, like the
song of sailors at the tackle and falls, but a barbaric, tuneless
intonation.

When I went into the sugar-house, I saw a man with an unmistakably New
England face in charge of the engine, with that look of intelligence and
independence so different from the intelligence and independence of all
other persons.