THE VEGETABLES. 



275 



Tlie Negro grows it, not for its pretty crimson flowers, but 

 because its hard seed put into a bladder furnishes him with 

 that detestable musical instrument the chac-chac, wherewith 

 he accompanies nightly that 

 equally detestable instrument the 

 tom-tom. 



The list of vegetables is already 

 ]on^: but there are a few more 

 to be added to it. For there, in 

 a corner, creep some plants of 

 the Earth-nut,^ a little vetch 

 which buries its pods in the 

 earth. The owner will roast and 

 eat their oily seeds. There is 

 also a tall bunch of Ochro - a 

 purple-stemmed mallow-flowered 

 plant whose mucilaginous seeds 

 will thicken his soup. Up a tree, and round the house-eaves, 

 scramble a large coarse Pumpkin, and a more delicate Grana- 

 dilla,^ whose large yellow fruits hang ready to be plucked, 

 and eaten principally for a few seeds of the shape and colour 

 of young cockroaches. If he be a prudent man (especially 

 if he lives in Jamaica), he will have a plant of the pretty 

 Overlook pea,'* trailing aloft somewhere, to prevent his garden 



^ Arachis hypogsea. ^ Abelmoschus esculentus. ^ Passiflora. "* Canavalia. 



T 2 



Sweet Potato. 



