Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/88

82 boxes, etc., are made. On the opposite, is the immense sugar-mill, with splendid machinery of the best pattern. At the entrance, on one side, is the office and counting room; on the other, the pyre or altar-like pile of mason-work, on which a fire is kindled with pitch-pine wood at night, to light up the entire place. At the opposite end is the extensive distillery in which the cane, (after the greater part of the juice has been expressed,) is permeated with the molasses, to make a villainous kind of rum called aguardiente del cana, which is as much like boiled lightning as can be imagined, and the very smell of which will cause a very fair sample of the Christian gentleman to commit murder. Above this, rises a small hill of solid rock about seventy feet in height, surmounted by the casa grande, or great house of the estate. This house is one story in height, with a vast corridor all around it, and a hollow square in the center. It is painted white outside, and inside it is like all the better houses in this country, elaborately frescoed in blue and chocolate colors.

The view, from the corridor, of the great volcano—the base of which is but ten miles distant—and of the Sierra Madre in the east, the Sierra del Tigre, and intervening plains on the other side, is wonderfully beautiful. The business of the hacienda is now but moderately profitable, since the fine, almost pure, and richly flavored sugar is worth but two dollars and fifty cents per arroba of twenty-five pounds, and the aguardiente only realizes three dollars per barrel of eighteen gallons, after being packed on mules to Zapotlan and Guadalajara, the barrel itself being returned.

Night came on while I was sitting on the broad verandah waiting for the arrival of the party, and drinking in