430 LIFE ON THE MISSISSIPPI.
sugar is exceedingly interesting. First, you heave your cane into
the centrifugals and grind out the juice; then run it through $&
evaporating pan to extract the fibre; then through the bone-filter to
remove the alcohol; then through the clarifying tanks to discharge
the molasses; then through the granulating pipe to condense ft;
then through the vacuum pan to extract the vacuum. It is now
ready for market. I have jotted these particulars down from memory.
The thing looks simple and easy. Do not deceive yourself. To make
sugar is really one of the most difficult things in the world. And to
make it right, is next to impossible. If you will examine your own
supply every now and then for a term of years, and tabulate the
result, you will find that not two men in twenty can make sugar
without getting sand into it.
We could have gone down to the mouth of the river and visited
Captain Eads' great work, the * jetties/ where the river has been
compressed between walls, and thus deepened to twenty-six feet; but
it was voted useless to go, since at this stage of the water everything
would be covered up and invisible.
We could have visited that ancient and singular burg, * Pilot,
town/ which stands on stilts in the water—so they say; where
nearly all communication is by skiff and canoe, even to the attend-
ing of weddings and funerals; and where the littlest boys and girls
are as handy with the oar as unamphibious children are with tha
velocipede.
We could have done a number of other things; but on account of
limited time, we went back home. The sail up the breezy and spark-
ling river was a charming experience, and would have been satisfyingly
sentimental and romantic but for the interruptions of the tug's pet
parrot, whose tireless comments upon the scenery and the guests were
always this-worldly, and often profane. He had also a superabun-
dance of the discordant, ear-splitting, metallic laugh common to his
breed—a machine-made laugh, a Frankenstein laugh, with the soul left
otit of it. He applied it to every sentimental remark, and to every
pathetic song. He cackled it out with hideous energy after * Home
again, home again from a foreign shore,' and said he * wouldn't give *
damn for a tug-load of such rot/ Romance and sentiment cannot
long survive this sort of discouragement, so the sfngfng and talking