Page:Narrative of the life and adventures of Paul Cuffe, a Pequot Indian.djvu/21

Rh apple trees. It grows like an apple, but as large as a main's bead. This is prepared for eating by roasting it in the fire and by taking off the skin. Then it is sliced up the same as we slice up bread for the table. This is better than the best wheat bread. Of this fruit they have two crops in a year which lasts about two months and a half each crop. Then they have during the other parts of year two crops of Payees, a kind of fruit that grows upon bushes about ten feet high and resembles large cucumbers. These are cooked by digging holes in the ground and then making hot fires in them and heating the same as we heat ovens. When the hole is sufficiently hot they clear out the fire, put in the fruit, and cover them over with large leaves. In about two hours they are sufficiently cooked.—When cooked, they become soft like a potatoe, but much more delicious. There is also a root, called tea-root, which is about four inches in diameter and two or three feet long.—These, when roasted, afford a juice similar to molasses. Besides these, they have plenty of good fish, hogs arid cattle. Horses are very scarce, though I saw a few while there. The people of this place, when they make a feast, which is often, roast a hog whole. This they do by digging a hole in the ground sufficiently large to put the animal in, then they build a large fire in it and heat it, as English people heat their ovens. While they are making the dirt oven ready, they have another large fire close by, where they heat small round stones. When these are sufficiently heated and the hole is also heated. they clear out the coals, and put a layer of the heated round stones upon the bottom, then they lay in the hog and cover it with large leaves, then over these a layer of the hot stones, then another of the leaves, and over all, they throw in layer of dirt. When the hog has become properly roasted, they take it out and lay it upon sticks prepared for that purpose, and the guests set round and eat.

There is an Englishman by the name of Hunter, who has a sugar plantation on this island, and employs seventy five hands, all natives of the country. He has about one hundred and seventy five acres under improvement. The sugar manufactured here is of good quality. There is a kind of root grows here called tarrow, which resembles a potatoe. This is the only vegetable that I saw cultivated on the island. To raise these, the people burn over a spot during the dry season, and sow the