Page:Mexico in 1827 Vol 1.djvu/92

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66
MEXICO IN 1827.

to free it from the molasses: the art of refining, though well understood, is seldom, or never, carried beyond the first stage of the process, there being no demand in the market for double-refined sugar.

The principal estates in the neighbourhood of Cuernavaca, are those of Tĕmīscŏ and Săn Găbrĭĕl, both of which belong to the family of Don Gabriel Yērmŏ, a Spaniard, famous for the arrest of the Viceroy Iturrigaray, in 1808, with which the Mexican revolution may be said to have commenced:) Trēintă-pēsŏs Treinta-pesos, El Pūēntĕ, Mĕăcătlān, Săn Găspār, and Săn Vicente Chĭconquăc. Those in the valley of Cūāūtlă are San Carlos, Pāntĭtlān, Cŏcŏyōc, Căldĕrōn, Căsă-sānŏ, Sānta Inēs, Cohăhūistlă, Măpăstlān, and Tĕnĕstĕpāngŏ. None of these estates produce less than 30,000 Arrobas of sugar in the year, while the annual produce of some of the largest may be estimated at from 40, to 50,000. The profits in a good year are very great, for, as each arroba of sugar yields an equal quantity of molasses, which sells at the door of the Hacienda for five reals and a half per Arroba, the sale of this alone is sometimes sufficient to cover the raya, or weekly expenditure of the estate, leaving only the wear and tear of the machinery to be deducted from the produce of the whole crop of sugar. From the molasses, 30,000 barrels of Chĭngăritŏ, or coarse rum, are made every year, in the neighbourhood of Cuernavaca alone. At Sānta Inēs, where a private distillery is established upon the estate, in which