27(5 A PROVISION GROUND. 



being " overlooked," i.e. bewitched by an evil eye, in case the 

 Obeali-bottle which liaiiijs from the Mano-o-tree, changed with 

 toad and spider, dirty water, and so forth, has no terrors for 

 his secret enemy. He will have a Libidibi^ tree, too, for 

 astringent medicine ; and his hedge wdll be composed, if he 

 be a man of taste as he often seems to be of Hibiscns 

 bushes, whose magnificent crimson flowers contrast with 

 the bris^ht vellow bunches of the common Cassia, and the 

 scarlet flowers of the Jumby-bead busli,^ and blue and white 

 and pink Convolvuluses. The sulphur and purple Neerem- 

 bergia of our hothouses, which is here one mass of flower at 

 Christmas, an,d the creeping Crab's-eye Vine,^ will scramble 

 over the fence-; wliile, as a finish to his little Paradise, he 

 will have planted at each of its four corners an upright 

 Dragon's-blood^ busl\ whose violet and red leaves bedeck 

 our dinner-tables in winter ; and are here used, from tlieir 

 unlikeness to. any other plant in the island, to mark 

 boundaries. 



I have not dared for fear of prolixity to make this 

 catalogue as complete as I could have done. But it must 

 be remembered that, over and above all this, every hedqe 

 and w^ood furnishes w^ild fruit more or less eatable ; the 

 high forests plenty of oily seeds, in wdiich the tropic 



^ Libidibia coriacea, now largely imported into Liverpool for tanning. 

 ^ Erythrina corallodendrou, s Abrus precatorius. 



^ Dracaena terminalis. 



