The carts take the cane to the mill, where they are unloaded, and where huge wheels, worked by steam, or latterly by electricity, press the sugar out of them,--the engine never ceasing its evolutions night or day. In the old times, the negroes were worked, as I have elsewhere stated, as many as nineteen and even twenty hours a day, at this, to them, terrible season. Even now, their hours are very long, but they are at liberty to strike for higher wages if they choose, and I am assured they very often do so. It is very interesting to watch the cane being thrown into the mill, and to observe the great wheels whirling round and round, while the continuous river of pale green syrup flows into its wooden trough-like receptacles, whence it is taken in buckets to the furnaces to be clarified. In its first state it soon turns acid, and consequently has to be boiled and clarified immediately, or else it would be ruined; and this is one of the principal reasons why there is such a press of work during the sugar harvest. It cannot be neglected for a single hour, and relays of hands have to relieve each other constantly, rest being impossible, even on the Sabbath. The juice, after being boiled and clarified, is filtered through vats, which, up to the rim, are filled with bone black and changed every six or eight hours, until the juice turns colour. According to the punctuality and skill with which the bone black is changed, so does the quality of the sugar increase in excellence. This apparently simple process is one of the chief expenses, as well as one of the subtlest arts, of sugar-making. Once clarified, the sugar goes through a variety of mechanical processes--very absorbing to the spectator, but not particularly so to the reader,--until it is eventually converted into moist sugar. Some portion, however, is retained, and sold as molasses, and golden syrup. When duly prepared for exportation, it is tightly packed in wooden cases, which are sealed up and strapped with slips of raw hide, ready for market.