The great bulk of the sugar mill, at
the left, like--on the flatness of the land--a rectangular mountain
shaken by a constant rumbling, was indistinct below, but the mirador
lifted against the sky, the man there on look-out, were discernible.
The mill, netted in railroad tracks, was further extended by the
storage house for bagasse--the dry pulpy remnant of the crushed cane--
and across its front stood a file of empty cars with high skeleton
sides. There was a noisy backing and shifting of locomotives among the
trains which, filled with sugar cane, reached in a double row out of
sight.
The cars were severally hauled to the scales shed, weighed, and then
shoved upon a section of track that, after they were chained, sharply
tilted and discharged the loads into a pit from which the endless belt
of a cane carrier wound into the invisible roller crushers. The heavy
air was charged with the smooth oiled tumult of machinery, the blast
whistles of varied signals, and the harshness of escaping steam. Other
houses, smaller than Daniel's but for the rest resembling it, were
strung along the open--the dwellings of the Assistant Administrador,
the Chief Electrician, a Superintendent, and two or three more that Lee
hadn't identified. He had been, now, nearly four weeks with Daniel, and
the details of La Quinta, the procedure of the sugar, were generally
familiar to him.
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