no HISTORY OF THE [BOOK. r. 



productions, as it is one of the most useful employ- 

 ments of our faculties, so it is a subject which well 

 deserves the notice of the historian, and the contem- 

 plation of the philosopher.;]; 



But it is now time to quit general description for 

 particular history. Many objects indeed are hereafter 

 to be considered, which, being common to all our 

 West Indian possessions, will be comprehensively dis- 

 cussed; but in previously treating of the origin and 

 progress of our national establishments in them, it 

 seems proper to discourse of each island separately j 

 and, as the most important, I begin with JAMAICA. 



J The West Indies are much indebted, on this account, to the East, 

 but I believe that the first of all fruits, the anana or pine-apple, was car- 

 ried from the West to the East. It was found by Columbus in all the 

 West India islands, and P. Martyr, whose decades were chiefly coropiled 

 out of Columbus's letters to king Ferdinand, writes of it as follows; 

 A/iumfrufium se invictissimus rex Ferdinandus comedisse fatetur, ab iis- 

 Aem terris ad-vectum, sqammosum, pinus nucamentum adspectu, forma co- 

 lore temulatur, sed mollitie par mehpeponi, sapor e omnem super at horten- 

 sent fructum : non enim arbor est, sed herba> tarduo persimilis, aut acan- 

 tho. Hulc et rex ipse palmam tribuit. Ex Us ego pomis minime comedi ; 

 qula unum tantum e paucis allatis reperere incorruptum, cxteris ex longa 

 xavigatione putrefactis. Qui in nat'ivo solo recentla ederunt illorum cum. 

 admiratione suavitatem extollunt. Who dees not lament that king Fer- 

 dinand did not leave a slice for his honest historiographer? The term 

 Anana is, I believe, eastern : Tfce West Indian name of this fruit was 

 fan-polo-mie. 



