is felt by those who are doomed to be slaves of slaves. In certain handicraft employments, it is usual to place the young negroes in a sort of apprenticeship to the older ones who are competent to afford them instruction; but the harshness with which these people enforce their authority is extreme; they exercise all the wantonness of cruelty without restraint or remorse. The same observation may be made concerning their conduct towards the inferior animal creation. Even the useful and social qualities of the dog secure him no` kind usage from an African master.

Such are the dire effects of slavery upon the human mind, and yet, dreadful is the thought, not less than seventy-four thousand Africans are annually torn from their own country, and carried by Christian masters to the West-India islands, and of these more than half are imported by the British planters!! A melancholy reflection to think, that people who enjoy more of the blessings of freedom than any nation in the old world, should be the most eager in encouraging the horrors of slavery

in the new.

SUGAR.

In treating of the West-India islands it will be expected that some account should be given of the principal staple commodities, and of the modes adopted in their cultivation. The first object that naturally excites our attention is the sugar-cane, which has been pronounced one of the most valuable plants in creation.. It is a native of the east, and was probably cultivated in India and Arabia from time immemorial; but at what time the Indians discovered the art of granulating the juice which is obtained from the cane, does not appear.

Notwithstanding the disputes respecting the time and manner of the sugar-cane being transported to the West-Indies, the most probable opinion is that it was carried thither by Columbus, in his second voyage, from the Canary islands.

The sugar-cane is a jointed reed terminating in leaves, or blades, whose edges are finely and sharply serrated. The body of the cane is strong but brittle, and when ripe it is of a fine strawcolour, and contains a soft substance which affords a copious supply of juice, of a sweetness the least cloying and most agreeable in nature. The intermediate distance between each joint of the cane is from one to three inches in length, and the cane itself is about an inch in diameter. The general height is from three feet and a half to seven feet, and in very rich lands the root has been known to put forth upwards of a hundred suckers.

The usual mode of holing, or planting by manual labour, is as follows: the quantity of land intended to be planted is divided into plats of fifteen or twenty acres each; these are subdivided, by means of a line and pegs, into small squares of about three feet and a half. The negroes are then placed in a row in the first line, one to a square, and directed to dig out with their hoes the several squares to the depth of five or six inches. The holes being now completed and the cuttings selected for planting, which are commonly the tops of the canes that have been ground for sugar, each containing five or six germs, two of these are placed longitudinally in the bottom of the hole, and covered with mould about two inches deep. In twelve or fourteen days the young sprouts begin to appear, and as soon as they rise a few inches above the ground they must be furnished with additional

mould from the banks which have been thrown up in digging out the holes. At the end of four or five months the banks are wholly levelled, and the spaces between the rows carefully ploughed. Frequent cleanings are indispensable, and a careful manager will remove, at the same time, all the lateral shoots that spring up after the canes begin to joint. The properest season for planting is between August and November. Of the subject of manures, which is an important part of sugar culture, we shall not say any thing, but pass on from the field to the boiling-house.

The time of the crop in the sugar islands, is the season of gladness and festivity to man and beast. So salutary and nourishing is the juice of the cane, that every individual of the animal creation derives health and vigour from the use of it. The great obstacle at this season to the progress of such planters as are not happily furnished with the means of grinding their canes by water, is the frequent failure or insufficiency of their mills; for though a sugar mill is a very simple contrivance, it, nevertheless, requires great force to make it overcome the resistance which it necessarily meets with. It consists principally of three upright iron-plated cylinders, and the middle one, to which the moving power is applied, turns the other two by means of cogs. Between these cylinders the canes are twice compressed; for having passed through the first and second cylinders, they are turned round the middle one by a circular piece of frame-work, and forced through the second and third operation, which squeezes them completely dry, and sometimes reduces them to powder. The cane-juice is received in a leaden bed, and thence conveyed into the receiver. The

macerated rind of the cane serves for fuel to boil the liquor.

The juice from the mill commonly contains eight parts of pure water, one of sugar, and one of mucilage. From the receiver the juice runs to the boiling-house along a wooden gutter lined with lead. It is received into a copper pan or cauldron, called a clarifier. A fire is lighted and some white-lime is stirred into it, which neutralizes the superabundant acid, and at the same time becomes the basis of the sugar. As the fire increases in force, a scum is thrown up, and the heat is suffered gradually to augment, till it rises to within a few degrees of the heat of boiling water. The liquor is then left to cool and drawn off, leaving the scum behind. The liquor is conveyed to the evaporating boiler, where it undergoes several operations till it is exceedingly thick, when it is drawn into a cooler, where the sugar grains, that is, as it cools it runs into a coarse irregular mass of imperfect semiformed crystols, separating itself from the molasses. From the cooler it is carried into the curing-house, where the molasses drains from it, and the process is finished.

Sugar, thus obtained, is called muscovado, and is the raw material from whence the British sugarbakers make their loaf or refined lump. There is another sort known by the name of Lisbon sugar; in the West Indies it is called clayed sugar, and is thus obtained. The sugar taken from the cooler is put into conical pans with the points downwards, having a hole about half an inch in diameter at the bottom for the molasses to drain through, and when they cease to drop, a stratum of moistened clay is spread on the sugar, which is the means of

carrying away more molasses, and leaving the sugar finer than that cured in the hogshead. From the molasses or treacle, scummings of the hot cane-juice, &c. is made rum; but it is not necessary to detail the process of the distillery: shall proceed to consider some of the minor staple commodities, beginning with

COTTON.

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Cotton is a beautiful vegetable wool, and is found growing spontaneously in all the tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and America. The cottonwool, which is manufactured into cloth, consists of two distinct kinds, known by the names of the GREEN-SEED COTTON, and SHRUB COTTON. The former is divided into two species, which produce pods at an early stage, but, if suffered to grow, they will rise into trees of considerable magnitude, and yield annual crops according to the season, without any kind of cultivation. The SHRUB-COT< TON, properly so called, is divisible into several varieties, but the most profitable sorts are the green seed, the small seed, and the Brasilian. The mode of culture is the same with all the different species.

The plant is raised from the seed. The young sprouts make their appearance in about a fortnight. At the age of four months they are topped, by having an inch or more taken from the end of each shoot, which is done to make the stems throw out a greater number of lateral branches. This operation is sometimes performed a second and even a third time. At the end of five months the plant begins to blossom, and in two months more the pod is formed, which, when ripe, bursts open in three partitions, displaying the white and glossy down to the sight. The wool is now gathered, and