ed in the provinces of Pampanga and Pangasinan,
is brought to Manilla for sale, in large conical earthern jars, called
_pilones_, each of which weighs a pecul. The Chinese or Mestizos who
are engaged in the purifying of sugar are the purchasers of these lots,
and most of them are in the habit of sending an agent through the
country, with orders to buy up as much of such sugar as they require
to keep their establishments at work. They are in the habit of paying
these travellers a rial, which at Manilla is the eighth part of a
dollar, for every pilone he purchases on their account at the limits
they give him. When enough has been collected in one neighbourhood
to load a casco or other province boat, it is despatched to their
camarine at Manilla, where after being taken from the original pilone,
if it has come from Pampanga, it is mixed up together, and placed in
another one, with an opening at the conical part, which is placed over
a jar into which the molasses distilling from it gradually drop, when
the colour of the sugar from being brown becomes of a greyish tinge.

At the top of the pilone, so placed with the cone turned down, a
layer of clay is spread over the sugar, as it has the property of
attracting all the impurities to itself; so that the parts of the
sugar in the pilone next to the clay are certain to be of the whitest
and best colour, whilst the sugar at the bottom, or next the opening
of the cone, is the darkest and most valueless, until it has had its
turn of the clay; for when the Chinamen perceive that the top part of
the sugar in the pilone or earthen jar has attained a certain degree
of whiteness, they separate the white from the darker coloured, and
the greyish tinged sugar from the dark brown coloured portion at the
foot of the jar; and after exposing the white and greyish coloured
to the sun, they are packed up, while the dark brown portion, after
being mixed with that of a similar colour, is again consigned to the
pilone to be clayed.

Besides clay, some portions of the stem of the plantain-tree are
said to have the power of extracting the impurities from sugar, and
in some districts are said to be preferred to clay for that purpose,
being chopped up in small pieces, and spread over it.

The unclayed descriptions of sugar are generally procurable at
Manilla by the end of February, when the new crop commences to come
in; and clayed, or the new crop, is seldom ready for delivery before
the middle o