are not uncommon; but the greater number of them are BOOK harmless, and, with the exception of Martinique and St. XCIII. Lucia, no scorpions are to be found in the Less Antilles. This noxious reptile is frequently observed in Porto Rico, and it exists probably in all the larger islands. The cayman haunts the stagnant waters, and negroes are sometimes exposed to its murderous bite. The parrot and its various species from the macaw to the parroquet frequent the forests; aquatic birds in unnumbered flocks enliven the shores. The colibry or humming-bird is the sportive inha- Colibry. bitant of these warm climes; it seldom remains long in the same place, but is seen for a moment on the blossoms of the orange or lime tree, and displays in its golden plumage the brightest tints of the emerald and the ruby. Trees similar to those that we have admired in other tropical countries, grow in equal luxuriance on these islands. The Banama, which in its full growth appears like a cluster of trees, is at first weak, and requires the support of a neighbouring plant. A canoe made from a single trunk of the wild cotton tree, has been known to contain a hundred persons, and the leaf of a particular kind of palm tree affords a shade to five or six men.* The royal palmeto or mountain cabbage grows to the extraordinary height of two hundred feet and its verdant summit is shaken by the lightest breeze.

Many of the plantations are enclosed by rows of Campeachy and Brazilian tree; the corab is as much prized for its thick shade as for its excellent fruit, and the fibrous bark of the great cecropia is converted into strong cordage. The trees most valuable on account of their timber, are the tamarindus, the cedar, the Spanish mountain ash, the iron tree and the laurus chloroxylon, which is well adapted for the construction of mills. The dwellings of the settlers are shaded by orange, lemon, and pomegra- Fruit trees. nate trees, that fill the air with the perfume of their

* The glabra, the leaf of which is seven feet in length and from two to three in breadth.-Adamson.

+ Hematoxylum campechianum.

BOOK flowers, while their branches are loaded with fruit. The XCIII. apple, the peach, and the grape ripen in the mountains.

Shrubs and flowers.

The date, the sapata, and sapotilla, the mammee,* several oriental fruits, the rose apple, the guava, the munga and different species of spondias and annonas grow on the sultry plains.

Botanists have observed on the wide savannas, the Serpidium Virginense, the Ocynium Americanum, the Cleomis pentaphyllon and the Turnera pumicea. The coasts are shaded by phyleria and every species of acacia, particularly the Farnese, which is remarkable for the beauty of its flowers. Opuntias and torch thistles cover the sides of the mornes or precipices, and the vine tree grows on the rocks in the neighbourhood of the shore.

The woods abound in lianes, whose branches, entwined round the trees, form sometimes verdant galleries or canopics of flowers. Silices arborescentes grow to a great height, and arrive soon at naturity, the polypodium arboreum, which belongs to this class, may be mistaken at a distance for the palm tree on account of its lofty trunk and the broad leaves on its summit.

Lignum vitæ, Wintera-canela, Cinchona Caribea and other medicinal plants are imported into Europe. The situation of these islands, their elevation and the great difference between the climate of the mountains and the plains account sufficiently for their abundant vegetation. Some writers have supposed that the commercial wealth of the Antilles is derived from the vegetable productions cultivated or naturalized by the colonists. This opinion is in most though not in all instances, correct; wild vanilla is found in the woods of Jamaica and St. Domingo ; the settlers cultivate aloes at Barbadoes, and the same plant grows spontaneously on the stony soil of Cuba and the Lucayos. Bixa oxellana, or the arnotto plant is indigenous to all the warm countries of America. Pimente,

which is so common in this archipelago grows in a wild BOOK state; all attempts to cultivate it have hitherto proved un- XCIII. successful.

The heights are covered in many places with groves of the Myrtus pimenta, and no other shrub grows under its fragrant shade. The ignama and potato are the principal Alimentfood of the negroes; manioc and angola pulse have been ary plants. imported from Africa. But the West Indian planter is wholly occupied in ministering to the wants or luxuries of Europeans; were it not for the immense supplies of corn brought annually from Canada and the United States, these fertile islands might be desolated by famine. Sugar Sugar cane is the great staple commodity of the West Indies; the cane is generally supposed to be indigenous to these islands and to that part of the continent of America situated within the tropics; but it is doubtful whether the particular sort cultivated in the Antilles was brought from India or the coast of Africa. Herrara informs us that the sugar cane was imported from the Canary Islands and transplanted in Hispaniola by Aguillon in 1506, and that the first sugar mill was constructed by Vellosa, a surgeon in St. Domingo. If the accuracy of Herrara's statement be admitted, nothing more can be derived from it than that there was a local importation of the cane about the year 1506. It appears, on the other hand, from the decads of Peter Martyr, that sugar was not unknown in Hispaniola at the time that Columbus made his second voyage, which was undertaken in the year 1493, and finished in 1495. The Otaheité canc has been generally introduced into the Antilles since the time of Captain Cook; it is considered in many respects superior to the common creole plant.

A field of canes is in arrow or full bloom about the Field of month of November. At this period of its growth there canes. are few objects in the vegetable kingdom that can vie with it in beauty. The canes are seldom lower than three feet and sometimes higher than eight; this difference proceeds from the nature of the soil and the mode of cultivation.

BOOK A ripe field may be compared to an immense sheet of XCIII. waving gold, tinged by the sun's rays with the finest pur

cane field.

ple. The stem with its narrow depending leaves is at first of a dark green colour, but changes as it ripens to a bright yellow; an arrow or silver wand sprouts from its summit, and grows generally to the height of four or five feet, the apex is covered with clusters of white and blue flowers not Conflagra- unlike tufts of feathers. The finest plantations are sometion of a times destroyed by fire, a calamity which occurs too frequently in these islands. No conflagration is more rapid, none more alarming; those who have witnessed such scenes can best describe them. The hopes and fortune of the husbandman, the painful toil of many hundred slaves, the labour of years, are in a few moments destroyed. If a plantation is by any accident set on fire, the inhabitants sound the alarm shell, and the shrill blast is repeated from the neighbouring hills. Rolling smoke, spreading flames, and cracking reeds are sometimes the first indications of danger. Louder notes are afterwards heard from a distance; bands of negroes hasten to the flames, their fears and exertions, the cruelty of their overseers, the noisy impatience of the planters, groups of horses and mules moving in the back ground increase the effect of so sublime a picture.

Cotton and coffee.

The cotton plant flourishes on dry and rocky lands, if they have not been too much exhausted by former cultivation. Dryness is of great advantage to it in all its stages; when the shrub is in blossom or when the pods begin to unfold the plant is rendered completely useless by heavy rains. These observations apply to every species, but more particularly to that sort which is cultivated by the French settlers. There are several varieties of this shrub, all of them resemble each other; the best are the green seed, the Brazilian, and the French or small seed.

There is but one species of the coffee tree, and it is supposed to be a native of Arabia Felix. This plant was brought to Batavia, from thence to Amsterdam and Paris, and afterwards transplanted at Surinam and Martinique

It seldom bears fruit before the third season, and some- BOOK times not until the fifth or sixth; it never lasts more than XCIII. thirty years, and frequently decays long before that time.

A single plant may produce from one to four pounds of coffee.

We cannot offer in our imperfect account of the Co-Natives. lumbian Archipelago any remarks concerning the natives, who have been exterminated by Europeans. Whether the Caribees or Charaibes had any possessions beyond the Antilles, whether the populous tribes of St. Domingo and Cuba were of the same race as the aborigines of Florida or Yucatan, are questions which cannot be considered very minutely in a work of this nature, and on which besides, no very satisfactory information can be obtained. Cuba is the largest and most important of these islands; Cuba. it commands the windward passage, as well as the entrance into the Gulfs of Mexico and Florida, and is for that reason sometimes called the key of the West Indies. It is more than 700 miles in length, and its medium breadth is about 70; thus, in extent, it is nearly equal to Great Britain, but its population has not of late years been ascertained, and authors have differed widely on this subject. According to the statements of some writers, Cuba contains 257,000 colonists, and 465,000 slaves; its total population must therefore amount to 752,000 souls ;* Mr. Bonnycastlef affirms, on the other hand, that there are not more than 550,000 inhabitants on this island. A small portion of Cuba has as yet been cultivated; a chain of mountains, none of which are very lofty, extends throughout its whole length. The soil is very fertile; the climate is more temperate than many of the other islands, and Cuba is considered, on the whole, the healthiest and most fruitful settlement in the Antilles. All parts of the island are not equally wholesome; many valleys exposed to the south, are not only scorched by the sun's rays, but the

* Communications concerning Cuba, London.

+ Bonnycastle, Spanish America.