THE Brazil planters are more backward in the management of their still-houses than in any other department of their business. The stills are earthen jars with small necks, and likewise small at the bottom, widening upwards considerably, but again straightening on approaching the neck. The foundation of a circular oven is formed, and two of these jars are placed within it, one on each side of it, in a slanting position, with the bottom within the oven and the neck on the outside, and being thus secured the walls of the oven are built up against them, and the top is closed in. These stills have round caps, _carapuças_, which fit on to the mouths of the jars, and are rendered perfectly tight by a coat of clay being daubed round the edges, after the _wash_ has been put into the still and the fire has been lighted underneath. These caps have on one side a pipe of six inches in length attached to each of them, and into this is inserted the end of a brass tube of four feet in length. This tube is placed in a broad and deep earthen pot or jar containing cold water, and the opposite end of it reaches beyond the pot. The tube is fixed with a sufficient slant to allow of the liquor running freely through it. The liquor which is obtained from the first distillation is usually sold, without undergoing any further process. A second distillation is only practised in preparing a small quantity for the use of the planter’s house. The _wash_ ripens for distillation in earthen jars similar to those which are used for claying sugar, but they are closed at the bottom instead of being perforated, as must necessarily occur with the latter. No exact rules are followed in the quantities of each ingredient for making the _wash_, because the distillers, who are usually freemen, differ much in the proportions of each ingredient. Until lately, only a small number of the planters had any apparatus for distilling, for it was their practice to sell all the melasses which were produced to the small distillers. Many of the persons in the lower ranks of life possess one or two of these rude stills, by which they derive a small profit without much trouble; fuel is to be had for the pains of fetching it, and scarcely any man is without a horse. The women often attend to the still whilst the men are otherwise employed. However, since the opening of the ports of Brazil to foreign trade, a considerable quantity of rum has been exported to North America, and likewise the demand of it for Lisbon has been greater than it was formerly; the price has consequently risen, and has induced many of the planters to distil their own melasses. But although this plan has been adopted, the stills are so totally inadequate to the distillation of large quantities of rum, that few persons erect a sufficient number of them to consume the whole of the melasses with which the sugar furnishes them.[163] LANDS.