270 A r no VISION GROUND. 



ill fruit, the tree easily became encircled with an atmosphere 

 of myth ill the fancy of the imaginative Hindoo. 



That tree with upright branches, and large, dark, glossy 

 leaves tiled upwards along them, is the Mammee Sapota,^ 

 beautiful likewise. And what is the next, like an evergreen 

 peach, shedding from the underside of every leaf a golden light 

 call it not shade? A Star-apple ;2 and that young thing 

 which you may often see grown into a great timber-tree, with 

 leaves like a Spanish chestnut, is the Avocado,^ or, as some 

 call it, alligator, pear. This with the glossy leaves, some- 

 what like the Mammee Sapota, is a Sapodilla,"* and that 

 wdth leaves like a great myrtle, and bright flesh-coloured 

 fruit, a Malacca-apple, or perhaps a Eose-apple. ^ Its neigh- 

 bour, with large leaves, grey and rough underneath, flowers 

 as big as your tw^o hands, with greenish petals and a purple 

 eye, followed by fat scaly yellow apples, is the Sweet-sop f 

 and that privet-like bush with little Howers and green 

 berries a Guava/ of which you may eat if you w^ill, as you 

 may of the rest. 



The truth, however, must be told*. These West Indian 

 fruits are, most of them, still so little improved by careful 

 culture and selection of kinds, that not one of them (as far 



^ Lucuma mammosa. 2 Chrysophyllum cainito. 



^ Persea gratissima. ^ Sapota acliras. 



^ Jambosa malaccensis and vulgaris. ^ Anona squamosa. 

 ^ Psidium Guava. 



