The Tabayba dulce is, according to Von Buch, the Euphorbia
balsamifera, the juice of which is neither corrosive nor bitter like
that of the cardon, or Euphorbia canariensis.) Twelve
sugar-manufactories (ingenios de azucar) were soon established in the
island of Great Canary, in that of Palma, and between Adexe, Icod, and
Guarachico, in the island of Teneriffe. Negroes were employed in this
cultivation, and their descendants still inhabit the grottos of
Tiraxana, in the Great Canary. Since the sugar-cane has been
transplanted to the West Indies, and the New World has given maize to
the Canaries, the cultivation of the latter has taken the place of the
cane at Teneriffe and the Great Canary. The cane is now found only in
the island of Palma, near Argual and Tazacorte,* where it yields
scarcely one thousand quintals of sugar a year. (* "Notice sur la
Culture du Sucre dans les Isles Canariennes" by Leopold von Buch.) The
sugar-cane of the Canaries, which Aiguilon transported to St. Domingo,
was there cultivated extensively as early as 1513, or during the six
or seven following years, under the auspices of the monks of St.
Jerome. Negroes were employed in this cultivation from its
commencement; and in 1519 representations were made to government, as
in our own time, that the West India Islands would be ruined and made
desert, if slaves were not conveyed thither annually from the coast of
Guinea.

For some years past the culture and preparation of sugar has been much
improved in Terra Firma; and, as the process of refining is prohibited
by the laws at Jamaica, they reckon on the fraudulent exportation of
refined sugar to the English colonies. But the consumption of the
provinces of Venezuela, in papelon, and in raw sugar employed in
making chocolate and sweetmeats (dulces) is so enormous, that the
exportation has been hitherto entirely null. The finest plantations of