Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/447

Wilhems Plains.]

shrubs found in the low parts of the island, appeared not to have been attempted, and it is certain that the cotton would not succeed.

The portions of each habitation allotted to different objects of culture, are usually separated by a double row of some tree or shrub, either useful or ornamental, with a road or path running between the lines. Amongst the useful is the vacoua or pandanus; whose leaves being strongly fibrous, long, spreading, and armed with prickles, both form a tolerable fence and supply a good material for making sacks, bags, &c. It is only whilst young that the vacoua answers this double purpose; but the tree is twelve or fifteen years before it arrives at maturity, and the leaves may be annually cut: no other use is made of the fruit than to plant it for the production of other trees. A double row of the tall jamb-rosa, or rose apple, makes the principal divisions in some plantations, forming agreeable, shady walks; and from the shelter it affords is preferred for surrounding the coffee trees, which require the utmost care to protect them from hurricanes. A tree once violently shaken, dies five or six months afterward, as it does if water stand several days together round its foot; sloping situations, where the water may run off, are therefore preferred for it, and if rocky they are the more advantageous, from the firmness which the roots thereby acquire to resist the hurricanes. Rows of the banana, of which the island possesses a great variety of species, are also planted by the sides of the paths leading through the habitations, sometimes behind the vacoua, but often alone; the pine apple serves the same purpose in others, as do the peach and other fruit trees where the paths are more considerable. A long and strong grass, called vitti-vert, is occasionally preferred for the lines of division; this is cut twice or thrice in the year to be used as thatch, for which it is well adapted. Hedges of the ever-flowering China rose, and of the netshouly, a bushy shrub from India which prospers in every soil, are often used in place of the tall jamb-rosa to form alleys leading up to the house of the planter, and also the principal walks in his