24 



imported into Great Britain is derived from the Honduras, 

 where it is unquestionahly produced in most ahundance, and 



4 



where it constitutes so important an article of trade that I 

 could not but feel anxious to procure information from the 

 West India merchants of this country respecting the mode 

 of its being cut^ and its transportation. It is to James 

 EwingjEsq. LL-D. of Glasgow^ — a gentleman who unites to 

 the most extensive commercial engagements such a love of 

 literature and the arts as is rarely combined in the same 

 individual^ — that I owe the following interesting history of the 

 mahogany trade ; which I think my readers will thank me 

 for making generally known^ and which Mr. Ewing had ex- 

 tracted in a measure from the Honduras Almanack for 1827- 



The first discovery of the beauty of mahogany wood is 

 attributed to the carpenter on board Sir Walter Raleigh's 

 ship^ at the time that vessel lay in some harbour in the Island 

 of Trinidad^ in 1595. Dr. Gibbons brought it into notice in 

 England* He was an eminent physician about the end of the 

 17th or beginning of the 18th century ; and a box for hold- 

 ing candlesj and then a bureauj made of a block of mahogany, 

 were given to him by his brother, a West Indian captain. 



At Honduras, a period of two hundred years is considered 

 to be necessary from the time of the plant springing from seed 

 to that of its perfection and fitness for cutting ; an opera- 

 tion which commences about the month of August. The gangs 

 of labourers employed in this work consist of from twenty to 

 fifty each ; but few exceed the latter number. They are com- 

 posed of slaves and free persons, without any comparative 

 distinction of rank ; and it very frequently occurs that the 

 conductor of such work, here styled the captain, is a slave. 

 Each gang has also one person belonging to it, termed the 

 Huntsman, who is generally selected from the most intelli- 

 gent of his fellows ; and his chief occupation is to search the 

 woods, or, as it is called in this country, the bush, to find cm- 



