May 8, 1866. ] 



JOUENAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



349 



going up to the anchorage we will get into the Crew canoe 

 alongside, and go away to look at the trees ; but wait one 

 moment whilst I tell you something about this canoe. It is 

 made of a single tree, and, as it will carry four of us, is from 

 25 to 30 feet long, and about 2i feet wide. It is tapered at 

 both ends, each end being terminated by a kind of knob or 

 knot, and both are formed nearly alike, at any rate quite suffi- 

 ciently so to permit of the canoe being propelled either end 

 foremost, though of course it will travel better with one end 

 forward than the other. It is made of a soft kind of maho- 

 gany, and is first hollowed out with fire and then finished with 

 a kind of chisel; it is round in the bottom, both inside and 

 out, ha^dng no partitions, but merely in the longer and larger 

 canoes sticks or pieces of wood placed across from edge to edge, 

 having holes at each end, which correspond with holes in the 

 sides of the canoe, and by passing bands through which each 

 end of the cross piece of wood is firmly fastened to its corre- 

 sponding side. The paddles, which are made of a hard, heavy 

 wood, are long-hamUed and shaped iu the blade much the same 

 as an Apple leaf, though vei-y much broader at the base — I 

 mean where the leafstalk is inserted. 



Now, let us embark and away to that beautiful grove of trees, 

 and see what we shall find there. In our light canoe we soon 

 reached the trees, and shooting at once out of the bright sun- 

 shine into the shade caused by the leafy canopy above us, came 

 all of a sudden into comparative darkness. It was half tide, 

 and looking around, on all sides huge stems of trees with curi- 

 ously arched roots, disfigured by a thick coating of mud and 

 slime, met the view, seeming like some strange wild di-eam 

 verified and realised ; for these Mangrove trees are tall, straight 

 spars running up to the height of 80, 100, or more feet without 

 a branch, and having roots shooting from the trunk which are 

 frequently as much as 10 or 12 feet long before they meet the 

 mud from which the tree grows, and of a thickness varying from 

 2J feet to a few inches. The leaf is small, ribbed, with serrated 

 edges, and somewhat simUar to that of the common Alder of 

 England, not at all resembling the general nm of tropical 

 foliage, but being more like that of the temperate zone. On 

 the roots of these trees and on the mud at low water are con- 

 stantly to be seen numerous little fish, which would seem to be 

 almost amphibious, since they exist for a long period out of 

 water, remaining in a perfectly lively state, and swimming 

 merrily away when they again reach water. The pectoral fins 

 of these little fellows are not placed verticaDy, as in most fish, 

 but horizontally, and so closely together that, spreading out fiat 

 upon the mud, they answer the same pm-pose as the fore feet 

 of animals, and the tail being likewise horizontal the creature 

 is enabled to move on the mud by springing. The head is very 

 large, in shape much like that of the gurnet, with enormous 

 eyes ; the fish is short and thick, being only from 2 to 2 J inches 

 long, and altogether a most sinister-looking little fellow is this 

 said fish. But I will now tell you of the custom I referred to 

 when speaking of Bonny bar. 



This bar swarms with ground sharks, the most terrible and 

 voracious of all the shark tribe, and to give you some notion 

 of their audacity, I will relate a circumstance which occurred 

 during my stay in the river. Some Crew-boys, i. c, natives of 

 the Crew coast, were sent on shore with a canoe, which strik- 

 ing the beach with her bow they aU jumped out to haul her up ; 

 the water where the steersman was reached half way up his 

 chest, and whilst pushing the canoe to help the others, he 

 threw out his leg to enable him to push with greater force ; 

 but during the time he was in this position a ground shark 

 swam at him and literally severed the entire leg, thigh, and a 

 portion of the hip from the rest of the body at one snap ; the 

 mangled remains of the poor fellow were immediately conveyed 

 on board the ship to which he belonged, but to no purpose, for 

 he died in excruciating agony in rather less than a quarter of 

 an hour. This will give you some notion of the ferocity of 

 this terrible monster of the deep. Now for the custom. The 

 natives have the utmost fear and terror of these brutes, and to 

 propitiate them, offer on the bar a yearly human sacrifice, 

 thereby hoping to gain their favour in case of any of their 

 canoes upsetting. A young man is chosen whose life, accord- 

 ing to their ideas, has bee* the most exemplary ; he then 

 undergoes a year's probation and purification, and becomes 

 juju — i.e., sacred. On a certain day he is taken by the priests 

 or juju men to the water's edge, clothed in a long white dress 

 made of calico. He is now placed standing in the bows of a 

 large canoe, carrying as many as a hundred paddlers, the canoe 

 being also decorated with white calico. In each hand of the 

 sacrifice a sword is placed, leaning against the corresponding 



shoulder, and thus standing, his canoe commences to move 

 a-head of a long procession of other canoes, all of which carry 

 a greater or less number of drummers, who keep up the most 

 diaboUcal noise with their drums and shouting. In this man- 

 ner they proceed tUl they reach the bar, where they all pull up. 

 Here the young man is stripped of all his finery, and forthwith 

 plunges overboard and is straightway devoured by the sharks ; 

 the length of time elapsing between his plunge and the water 

 becoming crimsoned with his blood, in consequence of his 

 being torn to pieces by the water demons, being taken as an 

 indication of the greater or lesser acceptability and propiti- 

 atory power of the sacrifice. 



Let us now turn from this sad and degrading scene in savage 

 Hfe to the lovely works of natm-e, here to be viewed in all the 

 wonderful luxuriance of the tropics. Here is seen besides 

 the hard, soUd, and heavy Mangrove (its specific gravity being 

 greater than that of salt water), a species of bastard mahogany 

 which is soft, light, and porous, though capable of resisting for 

 years the action of the weather, and which is therefore used 

 by the natives of this coast for the purpose of making canoes. 

 Prominent amongst other trees is likewise seen a most splendid 

 tree towering above its feUows in grandeur and majesty, but, 

 alas ! like many of the pretentious of the world, apparently 

 but of little use, for the wood is very soft, porous, and spongy, 

 utterly unfit for either buUding-purposes or any use where 

 strength is required, and at the same time worse than useless 

 for burning. The foliage is large, heavy, and succulent, as is 

 generally the case with tropical trees and plants. The stem is 

 large and noble-looking, several that I saw being at least 5 feet 

 in diameter at a man's height from the ground ; the branches 

 are numerous and of proportionate size to the bole ; and the 

 whole tree is worthy of admiration as an object of beauty. 

 The bark even of the trunk is smooth and very thick, and so 

 soft as to be easily indented by a blow from a light stick. The 

 first I ever saw I was amazingly struck with, and not bei«g 

 at that time nearly so well acquainted with timber, especi- 

 ally that of the hot climates, as I am now, I imagined that I 

 had fallen in with a grand prize, for I was out with a wooding 

 party and in search of a large stick of timber which I required 

 for a roof-tree for a house. I called out to one of the hands who 

 were with me to come and help me to cut down this magnificent 

 tree, and not waiting till he came up, I thought I would set to 

 work at once, for I carried with me a first-rate heavy American 

 felHng axe. Fancy my disgust on making my first underchop, 

 preparatory to making the upper one and bringing out my chip, 

 at seeing my axe-head sink almost out of sight, and finding 

 myself literally splashed all over my chest and face with a thick, 

 wloite fluid, exactly similar in appearance to milk, or the juice 

 which exudes when the tender gi-een shoots of the Fig tree are 

 fractured. The man I called had by this time come up, and he 

 was so tickled at the softness of the wood and its white fluid, 

 that he began chopping away at the trunk, which was more 

 than 3 feet in diameter. I therefore told him to cut it down, 

 for I wished to see the thickness of the annual rings of so 

 soft-grained a wood, for it was softer and more spongy than 

 the Lombardy Poplar, the specific gravity of which is about 

 the same as that of cork ; but I found after all the juice had 

 exuded, and the wood became perfectly dry, that its specific 

 gravity was even less. 



Some of the creepers are most beautiful, especially those of 

 the Pea tribe ; whilst the eye is constantly attracted by a 

 bright blue flash, amongst the trees and flowers, caused by 

 a beautiful light-blue kingfisher darting fi-om the bough of 

 some bush through the vivid sunlight, as he pounces with un- 

 erring aim upon some luckless landcrab, who has most impru- 

 dently strayed from his hole in the sand ; and to complete the 

 strangeness and discord of the scene, large flocks of grey par- 

 rots scream noisily overhead, passing over the river high in 

 air ; and huge iguanas and Uzards, which here not unfrequently 

 reach 5 feet or more in length, and are held sacred, or juju, by 

 the natives, crawl lazily along in the shade of the bushes which 

 come down to the shore, or sleepily bask on the sand, luxuriat- 

 ing in the mild wanntli of the sun, whilst the thermometer 

 stands at 98' in the shade. — A Scegeon. 



Bleedixg of Vines. — I have found a simple remedy of my 

 own always unfailing, which is to apply with a penknife a 

 httle cement made into a stifl' paste to the bleeding part, first 

 drying the wound with a rag ; repeat the process in two or 

 three hours' time and the bleeding wiU be effectually stopped. 

 — Novice. 



