1922.] THE BREAD-FRUIT IN THE WEST INDIES. 227 



could be 'made to supply an important article of food towards all ranks^ 

 to their inhabitants, especially the negroes.' 



" After touching on early references made to the fruit by travellers, 

 and to its botanical characteristics, he proceeded to give a detailed 

 description of a box ' found by experience capable of preserving very 

 tender plants in great health and vigour during a very long and tedious 

 voyage.' This and two other boxes, which he also described, bear a very 

 close resemblance to the Wardian cases used at the present day for 

 transplanting rare and valuable plants from one part of the world ta 

 another. 



"The matter was at last warmly ttiken up by Sir Joseph Banks, the 

 President of the Royal Society, who had accompanied Cook to Tahiti 'in 

 1769, and it was largely due to his exertions that in 1787 the Bounty 

 was commissioned and despatched to the South Sea Islands in quest of 

 specimens of the Bread-fruit tree. Captain William Bligh, who had been 

 with Captain Cook as sailing-master in the Resolution during his second 

 voyage round the world, was given command of the expedition, and all 

 went well until the Bounty had started on her homeward voyage^ to 

 England with a large cargo of Bread-fruit trees- The story of how the 

 crew, under Fletcher Christian, then mutinied ; and how, after setting 

 Bligh adrift in an open boat with eighteen officers and men, they 

 eventually sailed for Pitcairn Island, where their descendants remain to 

 this day, has often been told. In his frail craft Bligh and his comrades 

 after a tempestuous voyage lasting forty-one days, during which they 

 traversed 3,618 miles of sea, eventually reached Timor, and thence 

 England. 



" BREAD-FRUIT BLIGH." 



" For days the little party subsisted on the meagre daily ration of 1 oz. 

 of bread, ^ pint of water, an occasional teaspoonful of rum, and 1 oz. of 

 pork per head. Undismayed, however, by his terrible experience, Bligh, 

 who was known thereafter in the Royal Navy as ' Bread-fruit Bligh,' 

 assumed the command of a second expedition, and in January, 1793, he 

 successfully landed from his ship, the Providence, and her tender, the 

 Assistant, plants of the Bread-fruit, Mangostan, and other exotics which 

 he had obtained at Tahiti. 



" This valuable collection was planted out in the St. Vincent Botanic 

 Garden, and it was soon proved that the soils of the West Indies were 

 admirably suited to the Bread-fruit tree, which now grows prolifically 

 throughout the islands. The tree yields an abundant supply of fruit, 

 which you see the people cooking over charcoal fires outside their huts, 

 much after the manner described by Captain Cook. 



" ' The fruit' he wrote, ' is gathered just before it is perfectly ripe, and, 

 being laid in heaps, is closely covered with leaves : in this state it 

 undergoes fermentation, and becomes disagreeably sweet ; the core ia 

 then taken out entire, which is done by gently pulling the stalk, and the 

 rest of the fruit is thrown into a hole which is dug for the purpose,, 



