the sun, when the juice is expressed, and dry it for fuel; and ten are constantly at work in the warehouse, clarifying the sugar, and removing it afterwards, to the store-rooms, from whence it is sent to the market.
All these labours proceed without difficulty or compulsion, and the sound of the whip is never heard; but whether freedom will have the effect (as many hold here) of raising the workmen in the scale of civilization, is a question which I cannot pretend to decide. It is much to be desired, certainly, for a more debauched, ignorant, and barbarous race, than the present inhabitants of the sugar districts, it is impossible to conceive. They seem to have engrafted all the wild passions of the negro upon the cunning, and suspicious character of the Indian; and are noted for their ferocity, vindictiveness, and attachment to spirituous liquors. When not at work, they are constantly drunk; and as they have little or no sense of religious or moral duties, there is but a slender chance of amendment. They are, however, an active, and at intervals, a laborious race, capable of enduring great fatigue, and, apparently, well suited in constitution to the dangerous climate which they inhabit.
The valley of Cuĕrnăvācă suffered much in the first years of the revolution, and particularly during the siege of Cūāūtlă Āmīlpăs, in 1814, when most of the neighbouring estates were destroyed by the contending armies. They have, however, recovered their losses during the last ten years, and I could
