242 VOYAGE TO ST. THOMAS, ST. KI'T'S, ETC. 
which I visited, and occupies the place of our corn 
fields. I arrived just in time to secure some of the bloom, 
which I could not have done later. Coffee is hardly 
grown; I saw only one plantation at St. Jean. The culti- 
vated coffee is of excellent quality, and succeeds well in stony 
moist places, which are here abundant; but labour is too 
high, and, therefore, coffee is generally imported. From the 
same cause, the common fruits of this country are less seen 
than one would expect. 
The delicious Pine-apple succeeds every where, and requires 
little attention; a large extent of soil, on which it might be 
grown, lies waste; and it is not abundant on the Danish 
islands; only in St. Kitt's and Antigua we eat it frequently. 
The fruits belonging to the Citron family are not to be seen - 
on St. Thomas and St. Jean, some disease having affected 
the trees, which will no longer flourish here. I saw small, 
crippled trees, cultivated with much trouble. In Ste. Croix 
they are, however, common. The limes, preferable even 6 
lemons, waste on the ground; even oranges, and shaddocks - 
aslarge as children's heads, were lying in masses under the 
trees. Cocoa-nuts are hardly eaten by any one but the ne- 
groes,the European inhabitants seeming to care altogether — 
little for indigenous fruit At dinner, the tables arè —— 
covered with European dishes; boiled prunes and preserved 
fruit, from the old world, are placed before you, and little 5 . 
seen of their own. Thus, man longs every where for that 
which comes from afar ! I must still make mention of the Cab- 
bage Palms. Of these trees there are magnificent avenues on 
Ste. Croix, looking like gorgeous rows of columns, with splen- — 
did leafy capitals. The whitish-green trunk swells out in — 
the middle; the top of the shaft is green, and most ele- - 
gantly shaped. I never saw these palms without pleasing. 
emotions.  Unluckily, we can only carry home recollections 
of this and many other vegetable treasures. The finest - 
plants and flowers admit least of being dried; and I was 
often obliged to throw away, full of sadness, things on which 
I had bestowed much pains. cui M 
