Page:A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2.djvu/451

Wilhems Plains.]

found near the skirts of the plantations, and further in the woods there are some deer and wild hogs. Monkeys are more numerous, and when the maize is ripe they venture into the plantations to steal; which obliges the inhabitants to set a watch over the fields in the day, as the maroons and other thieves do at night. There are some wood pigeons and two species of doves, and the marshy places are frequented by a few water hens; but neither wild geese nor ducks are known in the island. Game of all kinds was at this time so little abundant in the woods of Vacouas, that even a Creole, who is an intrepid hunter and a good shot, and can live where an European would starve, could not subsist himself and his dogs upon the produce of the chase. Before the revolution this was said to have been possible; but in that time of disorder the citizen mulattoes preferred hunting to work, and the woods were nearly depopulated of hares and deer.

Of indigenous fruits there are none worth notice, for that produced by the ebony scarcely deserves the name; a large, but almost tasteless raspberry is however now found every where by the road side, and citrons of two kinds grow in the woods. A small species of cabbage tree, called here palmiste, is not rare and is much esteemed; the undeveloped leaves at the head of the tree, when eaten raw, resemble in taste a walnut, and a cauliflower when boiled; dressed as a sallad they are superior to perhaps any other, and make an excellent pickle. Upon the deserted plantations, peaches, guavas, pine apples, bananas, mulberries and strawberries are often left growing; these are considered to be the property of the first comer, and usually fall to the lot of the maroons, or to the slaves in the neighbourhood who watch their ripening; the wild bees also furnish them with an occasional regale of honey.

With respect to noxious insects, the scourge of most tropical countries, the wet and cold weather which renders Vacouas a disagreeable residence in the winter, is of singular advantage; the numerous musketoes and sand flies, the swarms of wasps, the ants, centipedes,