WEST
INDIES.
15
as the West Indian Islands in their ancient state were CHAP. not without culture, to neither were they generally noxious to I. health. The plains or savannas were regularly sown, twice in the year, with that species of grain which is now well known in Europe by the name of Turkey Wheat. It was called by the Indians Mahez, or Maize, a name it still bears in all the Islands, and does not require very laborious cultivation. This however constituted but a part only, and not the most considerable part, of the vegetable food of the natives. As these countries were at the same time extremely populous, both the hills and the vallies (of the smaller islands especially) were necessarily cleared of underwood, and the trees which remained afforded a shade that Was cool, airy, and delicious. Of these, some, as the papaw and the palmeto (n), are, without doubt, the most graceful of all the vegetable creation. Others continue to bud, blossom, and bear fruit throughout the year. Nor is it undeserving notice, that the foliage of the most part springing only from the summit of the trunk, and thence expanding into wide-spreading branches, closely but elegantly arranged, every grove is an assemblage of majestic columns, supporting a verdant canopy, and excluding the sun, without impeding the circulation of the air. Thus the shade, at all times impervious to the blaze, and refreshed by the diurnal breeze, affords, not BUT
(n) The species here meant (for there are several) is the palmeto-royal, or mountain-cabbage. Ligon mentions some, at the first settlement of Barbadoes, about 200 feet in height; but Mr. Hughes observes, that the highest in his time, in that island, was 134 feet. I am inclined to believe, that I have seen them in Jamaica upwards of 150 feet in height ; but it is impossible to speak with certainty without an actual measurement.
merely