SCHOPF AMERICAN TRAVELS. 



varieties are to be met with here. The best crop of oranges is gathered 

 about Christmas ; the August crop does not yield such agreeable fruit. 

 The sweet oranges bear properly but once a year ; but the commoner 

 sour oranges, and the bitter-sweet, yield ripe fruit mostly throughout 

 the year, however it is plucked in the greatest quantity at the time 

 mentioned. More rare are the "Soursoops," (Pumpelmus, Citrus decu- 

 mana L.) The sort produced most abundantly, and less known in 

 Kurcpe, is Limes"'', which are in general not much bigger than a dove's 

 egg, round, smooth, pale in color, with no smell, but of a very sour 

 taste. These limes are exported in great quantity, from this and the 

 other West Indian islands, to all of North America, where they are 

 preferred greatly for punch, being juicier and sourer than lemons. 

 Also, the expressed juice is sent off in casks. The trees bearing this 

 fruit are but low and bushy and commonly bend beneath the weight. 

 Little or no attention is given them, and in places where orchards have 

 been set, there is to be seen now little but a wilderness of bush. 



Ananas or Pine-apples. There are several varieties. That more 

 generally raised here seems to be the Ananas aculentus fructu pyra- 

 midato, carne aurea T. Many acres of land are every year set with 

 this excellent fruit ; and many cargoes exported to all parts of America 

 and even to Europe. They are cut for export when full matured but 

 still green exteriorly. They first begin to ripen early in May, but very 

 little is gathered for shipping before the end of May or the beginning 

 of June. If well and drily packed on board ship, and so kept, they 

 stand a voyage of four to six weeks and more. The ship by which I 

 returned to England in June, had several thousand on board, and 

 brought them well-preserved to London, where according to the size 

 and beauty of the fruit the selling price was 4-6-8 shillings sterling 

 the piece. The purchase price was 4-5 shillings a dozen. They are 

 also conserved in sugar or brandy. Even the peelings of this fruit 

 give to rum a very pleasant taste. 



But as early as the beginning of May a schooner was clearing for 

 America with a cargo of pine-apples and limes ; at that time none of 

 the earliest fruit was to be seen in the town ; but this vessel had col- 

 lected a cargo on the outlying islands, of the ripest fruit, or that nearest 

 ripe, so as to be the first off to America. In exchange they take from 

 North America and from Europe fresh and salted meats, butter, rice, 

 corn, wheat, etc., utensils and clothing of every description. 



From these several products and the work of the negroes those who 

 own plantations draw considerable returns. The statement is made 

 that only from pine-apples, yams, lemons, and coft'ee a plantation (large 

 to be sure) has yielded a profit in one year of 2,300 pieces of eight. 



Almost all the Bahama islands, such as are not mere barren ledges 

 or keys so-called, are thickly overgrown with bush. Although most 



* Citrus fructu splirerico-ovato punctato lacvi minori acido. Brown, Nat. hist, of Jamaica, 

 p. 308, n. I. Malus aurantia fructu limonis pusillo acidissimo. Sloane, Vo5'age, II, p. 182. 



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