With weeds, mould, dung, and stale, a compost form, Brigade and squadron, whiten on the sight; Of force to fertilize the poorest soil.

Unhappy he who journeys then from home,
No shade to screen him. His untimely fate
His wife, his babes, his friends, will soon deplore;
Unless hot wines, dry clothes, and friction's aid,
His fleeting spirits stay. Yet not even these,
Nor all Apollo's arts, will always bribe
The insidious tyrant, Death, thrice tyrant here:
Else good Amyntor, him the graces lov'd,
Wisdom caress'd, and Themis call'd her own,
Had liv'd by all admir'd, had now perus'd
"These lines, with all the malice of a friend."
Yet future rains the careful may foretell :
Mosquitos, sand-flies, seek the shelter'd roof,
And with fell rage the stranger-guest assail,
Nor spare the sportive child; from their retreats
Cockroaches crawl displeasingly abroad:

330

Ver. 334. Mosquitos.] This is a Spanish word, signifying a gnat, or fly. They are very troublesome, especially to strangers, whom they bite unmercifully, causing a yellow coloured tumour, attended with excessive itching. Ugly ulcers have often been occasioned by scratching those swellings, in persons of a bad habit of body. Though natives of the West Indies, they are not less common in the coldest regions; for Mr. Maupertuis takes notice how troublesome they were to him and his attendants on the snowy summit of certain mountains within the arctic circle. They, however, chiefly love shady, moist, and warm places. Accordingly they are commonest to be met with in the corners of rooms, towards evening, and before rain. They are so light, as not to be felt when they pitch on the skin; and, as soon as they have darted in their proboscis, fly off, so that the first intimation one has of being bit by them, is the itching tumour. Warm lime-juice is its remedy. The mosquito makes a humming noise, especially in the night-time.

......

These, without pity, let thy slaves destroy;
(Like Harpies, they defile whate'er they touch)
While those, the smother of combustion quells. 340
The speckled lizard to its hole retreats,

And black crabs travel from the mountain down;
Thy ducks their feathers prune; thy doves return,
In faithful flocks, and, on the neighbouring roof,
Perch frequent; where, with pleas'd attention, they
Behold the deepening congregated clouds,
With sadness, blot the azure vault of Heaven.

Now, while the shower depends, and rattle loud
Your doors and windows, haste, ye housewives, place
Your spouts and pails; ye Negroes, seek the shade,
Save those who open with the ready hoe 351
The enriching water-course: for, see, the drops,
Which fell with slight aspersion, now descend
In streams continuous on the laughing land.
The coyest Naiads quit their rocky caves,
And, with delight, run brawling to the main;
While those, who love still visible to glad
The thirsty plains from never-ceasing urns,
Assume more awful majesty, and pour,
With force resistless, down the channel'd rocks. 360
The rocks, or split, or hurried from their base,
With trees, are whirl'd impetuous to the sea:
Fluctuates the forest; the torn mountains roar:
The main itself recoils for many a league,
While its green face is chang'd to sordid brown.
A grateful freshness every sense pervades;
While beats the heart with unaccustom'd joy:
Her stores fugacious Memory now recalls;
And Fancy prunes her wings for loftiest flights.
The mute creation share the enlivening hour; 570
Bounds the brisk kid, and wanton plays the lamb.
The drooping plants revive; ten thousand blooms,

Ver. 341. The speckled lizard.] This is meant of the ground-lizard, and not of the tree-lizard, which Ver. 334. ..sand-flies.]This insect the Spaniards is of a fine green colour. There are many kinds of call mosquitilla, being much smaller than the mos-ground lizards, which, as they are common in the quito. Its bite is like a spark of fire, falling on the skin, which it raises into a small tumour accompanied with itching. But if the sand-fly causes a sharper and more sudden pain than the mosquito, yet it is a more honourable enemy, for remaining upon the skin after the puncture, it may easily be killed. Its colour is grey and black, striped. Lemon-juice or first runnings cure its bite.

hot parts of Europe, I shall not describe. All of
them are perfectly innocent. The Caribbeans used
to eat them; they are not inferior to snakes as a ine-
dicated food. Snuff forced into their mouth soon
convulses them. They change colour, and become
torpid; but, in a few hours, recover.
The guana,
or rather iguana, is the largest sort of lizard. This,
when irritated, will fly at one. It lives mostly upon
fruit. It has a saw-like appearance, which ranges
from its head all along its back, to its tail. The
flesh of it is esteemed a great delicacy. The first
writers on the lues venerea, forbid its use to those
who labour under that disease. It is a very ugly
animal. In some parts of South America, the alli-
gator is called iguana.

Ver. 342. And black crabs.] Black land-crabs are excellent eating; but as they sometimes will occasion a most violent cholera morbus, (owing, say planters, to their feeding on the mahoe-berry) they should never be dressed till they have fed for some weeks in a crab-house, after being caught by the Negroes. When they moult, they are most deli

Ver. 337. Cockroaches crawl.] This is a large species of the chafer, or scaribæus, and is a most disagreeable as well as destructive insect. There is scarce any thing which it will not devour, and wherever it has remained for any time, it leaves a nauseous smell behind it. Though better than an inch long, their thickness is no ways correspondent, so that they can insinuate themselves almost through any crevice, &c. into cabinets, drawers, &c. The smell of cedar is said to frighten them away; but this is a popular mistake, for I have often killed them in presses of that wood. There is a species of cockroach, which, on account of a beating noise which it makes, especially in the night, is called the drummer. Though larger, it is neither of so bur-cate; and then, it is believed, never poison. This nished a colour, nor so quick in its motions as the common sort, than which it is also less frequent, and not so pernicious; yet both will nibble peoples toeends, especially if not well washed, and have sometimes occasioned uneasy sores there. They are natives of a warm climate. The French call them ravets.

however is certain, that at that time they have no gall, but, in its stead, the petrifaction called a crabs-eye is found. As I have frequently observed their great claws (with which they severely bite the unwary) of very unequal sizes, it is probable these regenerate when broke off by accident, or other

wise.

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Which, with their fragrant scents, perfume the air, | So shall thy canes defy November's cold,
Burst into being; while the canes put on
Glad Nature's liveliest robe, the vivid green.
But chief, let fix'd Attention cast his eye
On the capt mountain, whose high rocky verge
The wild fig canopies, (vast woodland king,
Beneath thy branching shade a banner'd host
May lie in ambush!) and whose shaggy sides, 380
Trees shade, of endless green, enormous size,
Wondrous in shape, to botany unknown,
Old as the deluge.-There, in secret haunts,
The watery spirits ope their liquid court;
There, with the wood-nymphs, link'd in festal band,
(Soft airs and Phoebus wing them to their arms)
Hold amorous dalliance. Ah, may none profane,
With fire, or steel, their mystic privacy:
For there their fluent offspring first see day,
Coy infants sporting; silver-footed dew
To bathe by night thy sprouts in genial balm;
The green-stol'd Naiad of the tinkling rill,
Whose brow the fern-tree shades: the power of rain
To glad the thirsty soil on which, arrang'd,
The gemmy summits of the cane await
Thy Negro-train, (in linen lightly wrapt)
Who now that painted Iris girds the sky,
(Aerial arch, which Fancy loves to stride!)
Disperse, all-jocund, o'er the long-hoed land.

Ungenial to the upland young; so best,
Unstinted by the arrow's deadning power,
Long yellow joints shall flow with generous juice,
But, till the lemon, orange, and the lime,
Amid their verdant umbrage, countless glow
With fragrant fruit of vegetable gold;

Till yellow plantanes bend the unstain'd bough 490
With crooked clusters, prodigally full;.
Till Capricorn command the cloudy sky;

$90

401

The bundles some untie; the wither'd leaves,
Others strip artful off, and careful lay,
Twice one junk, distant in the amplest bed:
O'er these, with hasty hoe, some lightly spread
The mounded interval, and smooth the trench:
Well-pleas'd, the master-swain reviews their toil;
And rolls, in fancy, many a full-fraught cask.
So, when the shield was forg'd for Peleus' son;
The swarthy Cyclops shar'd th' important task:
With bellows, some reviv'd the seeds of fire;
Some, gold, and brass, and steel, together fus'd 410
In the vast furnace; while a chosen few,
In equal measures lifting their bare arms,
Inform the mass; and, hissing in the wave,
Temper the glowing orb: their sire beholds,
Amaz'd, the wonders of his fusile art.

While Procyon reigns yet fervid in the sky;
While yet the fiery Sun in Leo rides;
And the Sun's child, the mail'd anana, yields
His regal apple to the ravish'd taste;
And thou green avocato, charm of sense,
Thy ripened marrow liberally bestow'st;
Begin the distant mountain-land to plant:

And moist Aquarius melt in daily showers,
Friend to the cane-isles; trust not thou thy tops,
Thy future riches, to the low-land plain:
And if kind Heaven, in pity to thy prayers,
Shed genial influence; as the Earth absolves
Her annual circuit, thy rich ripen'd canes
Shall load thy waggons, mules, and Negro-train.

But chief thee, planter, it imports to mark 440
(Whether thou breathe the mountain's humid air,
Or pant with heat continual on the plain)
What months relent, and which from rain are free,
In different islands of the ocean-stream,
Even in the different parts of the same isle,
The seasons vary; yet attention soon
Will give thee each variety to know.
This once observ'd; at such a time inhume

450

Thy plants, that, when they joint, (important age,
Like youth just stepping into life) the clouds
May constantly bedew them: so shall they
Avoid those ails, which else their manhood kill.
Six times the changeful Moon must blunt her horns,
And fill with borrowed light her silvery urn;
Ere thy tops, trusted to the mountain-land,
Commence their jointing; but four moons suffice
To bring to puberty the low-land cane.

461

In plants, in beasts, in man's imperial race,
An alien mixture meliorates the breed;
Hence canes, that sickened dwarfish on the plain,
Will shoot with giant-vigour on the hill.
Thus all depends on all; so God ordains.
Then let not man for little selfish ends,
(Britain, remember this important truth!)
Presume the principle to counteract
Of universal love; for God is love,
And wide creation shares alike his care.

470

'Tis said by some, and not unletter'd they,
That chief the planter, if he wealth desire,
420 Should note the phases of the fickle Moon.
On thee, sweet empress of the night, depend
The tides; stern Neptune pays his court to thee;
The winds, obedient at thy bidding, shift,
And tempests rise or fall; even lordly man,
Thine energy controls.-Not so the cane;
The cane its independency may boast,
Though some less noble plants thine influence own,
Of mountain-lands economy permits
A third, in canes of mighty growth to rise:
But, in the low-land plain, the half will yield 480
Though not so lofty, yet a richer cane,
For many a crop; if seasons glad the soil.

Ver. 393. Whose brow the fern-tree.] This only grows in mountainous situations. Its stem shoots up to a considerable height, but it does not divide into branches, till near the summit, where it shoots out horizontally, like an umbrella, into leaves, which resemble those of the common fern. I know of no medical uses whereto this singularly beautiful tree has been applied, and indeed its wood, being spungy, is seldom used to economical purposes. It, however, serves well enough for building mountain-huts, and temporary fences for cattle.

While rolls the Sun from Aries to the Bull, And till the Virgin his hot beams inflame; Ver. 418. the mail'd anana.] This is the pine-The cane, with richest, most redundant juice, apple, and needs no description; the cherimoya, a Thy spacious coppers fills. Then manage so, South American fruit, is by all, who have tasted By planting in succession, that thy crops both, allowed to surpass the pine, and is even said The wond'ring daughters of the main may waft to be more wholesome. The botanical name of the pine-apple is bromelia. Of the wild pineapple, or ananas bravo, hedges are made in South America. It produces an inferior sort of fruit.

Ver. 482. if seasons glad the soil.] Long-continued and violent raips are called seasons in the West Indies.

To Britain's shore, ere Libra weigh the year:
So shall thy merchant cheerful credit grant,
And well-earn'd opulence thy cares repay.

490

Thy fields thus planted; to secure the canes
From the goat's baneful tooth; the churning boar;
From thieves; from fire or casual or design'd;
Unfailing herbage to thy toiling herds
Would'st thou afford; and the spectators charm
With beauteous prospects: let the frequent hedge
Thy green plantation, regular, divide.

With limes, with lemons, let thy fences glow,
Grateful to sense; now children of this clime: 500
And here and there let oranges erect

Their shapely beauties, and perfume the sky.
Nor less delightful blooms the logwood-hedge,
Whose wood to coction yields a precious balm,
Specific in the flux: endemial ail,
Much cause have I to weep thy fatal sway.-
But God is just, and man must not repine.
Nor shall the ricinus unnoted pass;
Yet, if the cholic's deathful pangs thou dread'st,
Taste not its luscious nut. The acasse,

510

Ver. 500....... now children of this clime.] It is supposed that oranges, lemons, and limes were introduced into America by the Spaniards; but I am more inclined to believe they are natural to the cli

mate.

The Spaniards themselves probably had the two first from the Saracens, for the Spanish noun naranja, whence the English word orange, is plainly Arabic.

Ver. 503....... the logwood-hedge.] Linnæus's name for this useful tree is hæmotoxylon, but it is better known to physicians by that of lignum compechense. Its virtues, as a medicine, and properties as an ingredient in dying, need not to be enumerated in this place. It makes a no less strong than beautiful hedge in the West Indies, where it rises to a considerable height.

Ver. 508. Nor shall the ricinus.] This shrub is commonly called the physic-nut. It is generally divided into three kinds, the common, the French, and the Spanish, which differ from each other in their leaves and flowers, if not in their fruit or seeds. The plant from which the castor-oil is extracted is also called ricinus, though it has no resemblance to any of the former, in leaves, flowers, or seeds. In one particular they all agree, viz. in their yielding to coction or expression a purgative or emetic oil. The Spaniards name these nuts avellanas purgativas; hence Ray terms them avellanæ purgatrices novi orbis. By roasting they are supposed to lose part of their virulency, which is wholly destroyed, say some people, by taking out a leaf-like substance that is to be found between the lobes. The nut exceeds a walnut, or even an almond, in sweetness, and yet three or four of them will operate briskly both up and down. The French call this useful shrub medecinier. That species of it which bears red coral like flowers is named bellyach by the Barbadians; and its ripe seeds are supposed to be specific against melancholy. Ver. 510.

The acasse.] Acacia. This is a species of thorn; the juice of the root is supposed to be poisonous. Its seeds are contained in a pod or ligumen. It is of the class of the syngenesia. No astringent juice is extracted from it. Its trivial name is cashaw. Tournefort describes it in his voyage to the Levant. Some call it the holy thorn, and others sweet-brier. The half-ripe pod affords a

With which the sons of Jewry, stiff-neck'd race,
Conjecture says, our God-Messiah crown'd;
Soon shoots a thick impenetrable fence,
Whose scent perfumes the night and morning sky,
The privet too,
Though baneful be its root.
Whose white flowers rival the first drifts of snow
On Grampia's piny hills, (O might the Muse
Tread, flush'd with health, the Grampian hills
again!)

520

Emblem of innocence, shall grace my song.
Boast of the shrubby tribe, carnation fair,
Nor thou repine, though late the Muse record
Thy bloomy honours. Tipt with burnish'd gold,
And with imperial purple crested high,
More gorgeous than the train of Juno's bird,
Thy bloomy honours oft the curious Muse
Hath seen transported: seen the humming bird,
Whose burnish'd neck bright glows with verdant
Least of the winged vagrants of the sky, [gold;
Yet dauntless as the strong-poune'd bird of Jove;
With fluttering vehemence attack thy cups,
To rob them of their nectar's luscious store.
But if with stones thy meagre lands are spread;
Be these collected, they will pay thy toil:
And let Vitruvius, aided by the line,
Fence thy plantations with a thick-built wall.
On this lay cuttings of the prickly pear;

550

strong cement; and the main stem, being wounded, produces a transparent gum, like the Arabic, to which trees this bears a strong resemblance.

Ver. 515....... The privet.] Ligustrum. This shrub is sufficiently known. Its leaves and flowers make a good gargle in the aphthæ, and ulcered throat.

Ver. 520. ...... carnation fair.] This is indeed a most beautiful flowering shrub. It is a native of the West Indies, and called, from a French governor, named Depoinci, poinciana. If permitted, it will grow twenty feet high; but, in order to make it a It is always in good fence, it should be kept low. blossom. Though not purgative, it is of the senna kind. Its leaves and flowers are stomachic, carminative, and emmenagogue. Some authors name it cauda pavonis, on account of its inimitable beauty; the flowers have a physicky smell. How it came to be called doodle-doo I know not; the Barbadians more properly term it flower fence. This plant grows also in Guinea.

Ver. 526. ...... seen the humming bird.] The humming bird is called picaflore by the Spaniards, on account of its hovering over flowers, and sucking their juices, without lacerating, or even so much as disIts Indian name, says composing their petals. Ulloa, is guinde, though it is also known by the appellation of rabilargo and lizongero. By the CaIt is common in ribbeeans it was called callobree. all the warm parts of America. There are various species of them, all exceeding small, beautiful, and The crested one, though not so frequent, bold. is yet more beautiful than the others. It is chiefly to be found in the woody parts of the mountains. Edwards has described a very beautiful humming bird, with a long tail, which is a native of Surinam, but which I never saw in these islands. They are easily caught in rainy weather.

Ver. 536.......prickly pear.] The botanical name of this piant is opuntia; it will grow in the barrenest soils, and on the tops of the walls, if a small portion of earth be added. There are two sorts of it, one whose fruit is roundish and sweet, the other, which

550

Though more its colour charms the ravish'd eye;
Vermeil, as youthful beauty's roseat hue;
As thine, fair Christobelle: ah, when will Fate,
That long hath scowl'd relentless on the bard,
Give him some small plantation to enclose,
Which he may call his own? Not wealth he craves,
But independence: yet if thou, sweet maid,
In health and virtue bloom; though worse betide,
Thy smile will smooth Adversity's rough brow.
In Italy's green bounds, the myrtle shoots
A fragrant fence, and blossoms in the Sun.
Here, on the rockiest verge of these blest isles,
With little care, the plant of love would grow.
Then to the citron join the plant of love,
And with their scent and shade enrich your isles.
Yet some pretend, and not unspecious they,
The wood-nymphs foster the contagious blast.
Foes to the Dryads, they remorseless fell
Each shrub of shade, each tree of spreading root,
That woo the first glad fannings of the breeze.
Far from the Muse be such inhuman thoughts;
Far better recks she of the woodland tribes,
Earth's eldest birth, and Earth's best ornament.
Ask him, whom rude necessity compels
To dare the noontide fervour, in this clime,
Ab, most intensely hot; how much he longs
For cooling vast impenetrable shade?
The Muse, alas, th' experienc'd Muse can tell:
Oft hath she travell'd, while solstitial beams
Shot yellow deaths on the devoted land;

559

570

Oft, oft hath she their ill-judg'd avarice blam'd,
Who, to the stranger, to their slaves and herds,
Denied this best of joys, the breezy shade.
And are there none, whom generous pity warms,
Friends to the woodland reign; whom shades delight?
Who, round their green domains, plant hedge-row
trees;

580

And with cool cedars screen the public way?
Yes, good Montano; friend of man was he:
Him persecution, virtue's deadliest foe,
Drove, a lorn exile, from his native shore;
From his green hills, where many a fleecy flock,
Where many a heifer cropt their wholesome food;
And many a swain, obedient to his rule,
Him their lov'd master, their protector, own'd.
Yet, from that paradise, to Indian wilds,
To tropic suns, to fell barbaric hinds,
A poor outcast, an alien, did he roam;
His wife, the partner of his better hours,
And one sweet infant, cheer'd his dismal way.
Unus'd to labour; yet the orient Sun,
Yet western Phoebus, saw him wield the hoe.
At first a garden all his wants supplied,
(For Temperance sat cheerful at his board)
With yams, cassada, and the food of strength,
Thrice-wholesome tanies: while a neighbouring dell,

589

who exceed in drinking or exercise, are liable on their arrival in the West Indies. The French call it maladie de Siame, or more properly, la fievre des matelots. Those who have lived any time in the islands are no more subject to this disease than the Creoles, whence, however, some physicians have too hastily concluded, that it was of foreign extraction.

Ver. 595. Cossada,] Cassavi, cassava, is called has more the shape of a fig, is sour. The former jatropha by botanists. Its meal makes a wholeis sometimes eaten, but the other seldom. The some and well-tasted bread, although its juice be French call them pomme de raquette. Both fruit poisonous. There is a species of cassada which and leaves are guarded with sharp prickles, and, may be eat with safety, without expressing the even in the interior part of the fruit, there is one juice; this the French call camagnoc. The colour which must be removed before it is eaten. The of its root is white, like a parsnip; that of the leaves, which are half an inch thick, having a sort common kind is of a brownish red, before it is of pulp interposed between their surfaces, being scraped. By coction the cassada juice becomes deprived of their spines, and softened by the fire, an excellent sauce for fish; and the Indians premake no bad poultice for inflammations. The pare many wholesome dishes from it. I have given juice of the fruit is an innocent fucus, and is often it internally mixed with flour without any bad conused to tinge guava jellies. The opuntia, upon sequences; it did not however produce any of the which the cochineal insect breeds, has no spines, salutary effects I expected. A good starch is made and is cultivated with care in South America, from it. The stem is knotty, and, being cut into where it also grows wild. The prickly pear makes small junks and planted, young sprouts shoot up a strong fence, and is easily trimmed with a sci- from each knob. Horses have been poisoned by mitar. It grows naturally in some parts of Spain. eating its leaves. The French name it manihot, Ver. 538. Wild liquorice.] This is a scandent magnoc, and manioc, and the Spaniards mandiocha. plant, from which the Negroes gather what they It is pretended that all creatures but man eat the call jumbee beeds. These are about the size of raw root of the cassada with impunity; and, when pigeon-peas, almost round, of a red colour, with a dried, that it is a sovereign antidote against veblack speck on one extremity. They act as an nomous bites. A wholesome drink is prepared e netic, but, being violent in their operation, great from this root by the Indians, Spaniards, and Porcaution should be observed in using them. The tuguese, according to Pineda. There is one species leaves make a good pectoral drink in disorders of of this plant which the Indians only use, and is by the breast. By the French it is named petit pana- them called baccacoua. coco, to distinguish it from a large tree, which bears seeds of the same colours, only much bigger. This tree is a species of black ebony.

Ver. 558. ........... contagious blast.] So a particular species of blight is called in the West Indies. See its description in the second book.

Ver. 571. • yellow deaths.] The yellow fever, to which Europeans of a sanguine habit of body, and

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Ver. 596. Tanies.] This wholesome root, in some of the islands, is called edda: its botanical name is arum maximum Ægyptiacum. There are three speeies of tanies, the blue, the scratching, and that which is commonly roasted. The blossoms of all three are very fragrant, in a morning or evening. The young leaves, as well as the spiral stalks which support the flower, are eaten by negroes as a salad.