86                     TRAVELS   IN   TRINIDAD.             [Let. 6
kale, patate, banana*, plantain-f-, breadfruit, artichokes
asparagus, water-cresses, pulse, sonel, paisley, and pease
of various kinds, but none of them resembling those in
England, with a variety of roots, &c.
Fruits grow in great plenty, (oranges and lemons al-
ready mentioned), shadocks, mammees J, soursops, papas,
pine-apples §, custard-apples, star-apples, prickly-pears,
* The banana-tree, a species of the Mus A, grows plentifully in all
the West India islands, and bears a fruit six or nine inches long,
covered, when ripe, with a yellow and tender skin. Its leaves are
two yards long, and about twelve inches wide, and the fruit grows
upon a stalk about six yards high ; each stalk bearing only one single
cluster or bunch, which consists of forty or fifty bananas. When
the bunch is gathered, they cut off the stalk, otherwise it would bear
no more fruit. The pulp of the fruit is as soft as marmalade, and of
a very pleasant taste, and it is said to be very nourishing, to excite
urine, and to provoke venery. There are two trees of this name, one
is called the fig-tree banana, a fig-tree of Adam, (said to be tbe for-
bidden fruit), and differs from the other only in the nature and qua-
lity of its fruit.
f Thefruit of the plantain-tree is not much unlike the banana, either
in taste or shape, only it is somewhat longer.
J The mammee-tree is tall and strait bodied, without knots or
limbs, for sixty or seventy feet, but afterwards spreading into several
small branches, growing thick and close together. The bark is of a
dark grey colour, thick and rough, its fruit thicker than a quince,
round, and covered with a thick rind. When the fruit is ripe, the
rind is yellow, and will peel off like leather, but before it is brittle.
Under the rind of the pulp it is also yellow, and in the middle are two
large stones, flattish, and each of them bigger than an almond j the
fruit smells weH, and the taste is not disagreeable.
§ The ananas, or pine-apple, so called from the resemblance to die
cones of the pines and firs, is of all others the most delicious fruit,
and grows spontaneous. It is the product of an herbaceous plant,
with leaves like an aloe, and the top of the fruit is adorned with a Irt
tie crown, and also with a little bunch of leaves.   The pulp is fibroģ