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PERNAMBUCO TO CRATO.
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143
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appearance,
so that I did not see her during my first two or three visits; but as
her mother afterwards told me, her curiosity to see and speak with an
Englishman, at length completely got the better of her reserve, so that
afterwards she always appeared when I was there. She was then about to
be married to a younger brother of her sister's husband, having been
betrothed to him for many years : it is indeed seldom that the
daughters of respectable families are allowed the power of choosing a
husband for themselves, the parents always taking care to make the
arrangements in such cases.
At
this plantation I had often an opportunity of seeing the manner in
which Rapadura is made; the expression and boiling of the juice are
performed at the same time; the mill is of very clumsy construction,
consisting of a frame-work containing three vertical wooden rollers
through which the cane is passed to express the juice, which is
collected in a receiver below, where it runs into a trough that had
been hollowed out of a large tree. The cane requires to be passed three
times through the mill before the whole of the juice is expressed: from
this trough a portion of the juice is conveyed from time to time into
small brass boiling pans, of which there were nine, all placed close
beside each other over small openings in the top of an arched furnace,
and during the different stages of the operation, as the evaporation
proceeds, the juice is poured from one pan into the other, till in the
last it acquires the desired consistency; it is then transferred into a
large tub, hollowed out of solid wood, called a Gamella, and allowed to
cool for some time, when it is finally run out into wooden moulds about
the size and shape of our common bricks, although some are made about
half this size ; after being removed from the moulds, they are allowed
to harden for some days, when they are fit for the market; the larger
size sell at Crato for about a penny each, in Ico for three halfpence,
and in Aracaty for twopence each.
Sugar
cane, mandiocca, rice and tobacco are the principal articles cultivated
in Crato. The ordinary tropical fruit trees grow in and around the
town, such as the orange, the lime, the lemon, the banana, the mango,
the papaw, the jack, the bread-fruit, and
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