The estate we were on produced chiefly sugar.  The milk by which the canes are crushed consisted of three vertical wooden rollers worked by mules.  The most interesting subject connected with our trip was the cultivation and preparation of the mandioca.  The chief produce is called farinha: the slaves are fed almost entirely on it.  A field of mandioca, when ripe, looks something like a nursery of young plants. Each plant grows by itself, with a few palmated leaves only at the top. The stem is about an inch in diameter at the base, and six or seven feet long.  A bud appears at nearly every inch of the otherwise smooth stem. These plants give forth tubers of irregular shape, in substance like a parsnip, about six inches long and four thick.  The tubers, after being scraped and rinsed, are ground, or rather grated against a wheel with a brass grater as a tire.  One slave turns the wheel, and another presses the root against it.  The pulp is then put into bags and pressed.  The matter, which resembles cheese-cake in consistence, is then rubbed through a wire sieve and thrown into shallow copper pans moderately heated.  After being stirred up, it quickly dries, and the produce is not unlike oatmeal.  The juice pressed out is very poisonous by itself. It is, however, collected in pans, when a beautifully white substance is precipitated to the bottom.  This substance is tapioca, so largely used in puddings at home.  To plant a field of mandioca, the stems of the old plants are cut into bits about four inches long, and stuck in the ground.  They quickly take root, and, sending forth shoots from the buds, are in two years fit again to dig up.  The mandioca is called cassava in some countries.  The press used by the Indians is a simple and most ingenious contrivance.  It is made by the Indians wherever the plant is grown.  It is a basket made of fine split cane loosely plaited; in shape, a tube five feet long and five inches in diameter at the mouth, and narrowing somewhat at the bottom.  A strong loop is left at each end.  To use it, first it is wetted, and then a man holding the mouth presses the other end against the ground till it is half its former height.  A long smooth stick is now inserted down the middle, and the pulp is packed tightly round it till the basket is full.  It is then hung to a beam or branch of a tree by a loop at the mouth, while a heavy weight is attached to one at the bottom, till the basket has assumed its original tube-like form and length, and the whole of the liquid has been pressed out of the mass of mandioca.