Adventures of a Young Naturalist
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."
"The horse an infirmity!" cried the Mexican.
"Yes, certainly--among your caste at least; for you could no more do
without a horse than a cripple without his crutch."
Don Antonio whistled without making any reply, and, untying his horse,
took Lucien up in front, and accompanied us for more than a league. At
last, as his duties called him home, he shook us by the hand and turned
back. Even after we had lost sight of him, we could still hear him
wishing us a pleasant journey.
We had to cross a wide prairie; the heat was suffocating, and we marched
on side by side in dead silence. Lucien's walking was much hindered by
his game-pouch and gourd, which, in spite of all his efforts, would work
round in front of him. I soon noticed that he had got rid of the
troublesome gear.
"Hallo!" I cried, "what have you done with your provisions?"
"L'Encuerado wished to carry them for me."
"L'Encuerado's load is quite heavy enough now, and you must get
accustomed to your own. In a few days you won't feel it. Habit makes
many things easy which at first seem impossible."
"Senor," said l'Encuerado, "Chanito (this was the name he gave to
Lucien) is tired, and this is his first journey; I'll give him back all
his things to-morrow."
"It will be much better for him to get accustomed to them now. Give him
back his baggage, it is not too heavy for him; if you don't, you will be
the one to be scolded."
The Indian grumbled before he obeyed; then, taking the boy by the hand,
dropped behind, muttering to him:
"When you don't want to walk any more, Chanito, you must tell me, and
you shall ride on the top of my pack."
"No," said I, turning round; "if you do any thing of the kind, I will
send both of you home."
"My shoulders are my own," replied the Indian, earnestly; "surely I have
a right to employ them as I choose."
Sumichrast burst out laughing at this logic, and I was obliged to go on
in front, or I should have done the same. Nevertheless, I feared lest
Lucien should learn, on the very first day of his journey, to depend too
much on l'Encuerado's kindness. I was, therefore, pleased to hear him
refuse several times the Indian's offer of putting him up on his pack,
an idea which the faithful fellow persisted in with an obstinacy which I
had long known him to possess. A little time after--thinking, doubtless,
that his dignity compelled him to prove that he was easily able to
increase the weight of his load--he seized Gringalet, who was walking
close behind lolling out his tongue, and throwing the dog up on his
back, and commencing an Indian trot, ran by us with a triumphant look.
Gringalet was at first taken by surprise, and, raising a cry of
distress, wanted to jump down; but he soon sat quiet enough, without
displaying any uneasiness, to the great joy of my son, who was much
amused at the incident.
The plain which we were crossing seemed absolutely interminable.
"It's no use our walking," said Lucien; "we don't appear to make any
advance."
"Fortunately, you are mistaken," replied Sumichrast. "Look in front of
you, and you will see that the trees on ahead, which a short time ago
looked like one uninterrupted mass of foliage, can now be discerned
separately."
"You mean the forest which we can see from here?"
"What you take for a forest is nothing but a few trees scattered about
the plain."
"Isn't M. Sumichrast wrong in that, father?"
"No, my boy; but those who have more experience than you might well be
mistaken, for when objects are seen at a distance they always seem to
blend together in a group. This morning, for instance, when we were
walking along the main road, you were always exclaiming that it ended in
a point; but you were convinced that your eyes deceived you. It is just
the same now: these trees appear to be farther apart in proportion as we
approach them; and you will be quite surprised presently when you see
how distant they are from each other. The same illusion is produced by
the stars, which are millions of miles apart, and yet appear so thick in
the sky, that your brother Emile was regretting, the other night, that
he was not tall enough to grasp a handful of them."
"And don't forget," added Sumichrast, "that light and imagination often
combine to deceive us."
"Just as in the fable of the 'Camels and the floating sticks.'"
"Bravo! my young scholar; you've heard that fable?"
"Yes. One evening I was going into a dimly-lighted room, and I fancied I
saw a great gray man seated in a chair; I cried out, and ran away,
afraid. Then papa took me by the hand and led me into the dark room
again, and I found that the giant which had frightened me so much was
nothing but a pair of trowsers, thrown over the back of an arm-chair.
The next day mamma made me learn the fable of the 'Camels.'"
On our road I called Lucien's attention to a small thorny shrub, a kind
of mimosa, called _huizachi_ by the Indians, who use its pods for dyeing
black cloth, and for making a tolerably useful ink. The plain assumed by
degrees a less monotonous aspect. Butterflies began to hover round us,
and our young naturalist wanted to commence insect-hunting. I
restrained his ardor, as I wished to keep our boxes and needles free for
the rarer species which we might expect to find as soon as we had
reached more uninhabited districts. At last, lagging a little, our party
reached the foot of the mountains.
It was now five o'clock; night was coming on, so it was highly necessary
to look out for shelter. We came in view of a bamboo-hut in the nick of
time. An old Indian was reclining in front of it, warming his meagre
limbs in the rays of the setting sun, clad in nothing but a pair of
drawers and a hat with a torn brim. He rose as we came near, and
proffered us hospitality. His wife, whose costume consisted of a cotton
shirt edged with red thread, came running in answer to his call, and was
quite in raptures at the prettiness of the "little white traveller," who
completely ingratiated himself by saluting her in her own language. We
had accomplished a journey of seven leagues, although Lucien, thanks to
Don Antonio's horse, had not walked quite so far.
The aborigines set before us rice and beans. After this frugal repast,
washed down with cold water, I wanted Lucien to lie down on a large mat;
but the restless little being took advantage of his elders being
comfortably stretched out to sleep, and ran off to see our hostess's
fowls roosting for the night on a dead tree, and then to prowl up and
down in company with l'Encuerado. The latter had ferreted out a
three-corded guitar which was in the hut, and strummed away at the same
tune for hours together--no doubt to the great pleasure of the boy,