BOTANY. 267 



with some degree of confidence, for, since my return, I have re-examined 

 my notes, and the remnants of my specimens, amid the collection in the 

 Jardin du Roi, and have scarcely had a single instance to alter. My 

 books of reference, both for species and localities, have been Persoon 

 and Willdenow. At the end of each name, I have added the country to 

 which the plant has been hitherto supposed to be indigenous, that an 

 idea may be formed of the similitude of vegetation, and I have given the 

 uses made of it by the natives. They were all gathered in a soil 

 more or less sandy, and on a level with the sea, except those from 

 St. Jago, which are too few to admit of any observation. 



It has been remarked by M. Palisot de Beauvois, in his Flora of Benin 

 and Owaree, that the natives of Africa more frequently make their 

 medicines from Compositae, than any other family. This is by no means 

 the case with the JolofFs and Mandingoes ; their remedies seem to be 

 distributed throughout the different families, and the only remarkable 

 circumstance attending them, is the frequency of their antidotes against 

 worms, and lung complaints. The variation of the climate accounts for 

 the necessity of the latter, but their food, which is chiefly rice and corn, 

 without any great proportion of fruit, does not seem to induce the former 

 disorder. The guinea worm I believe to be wholly unknown ; nor did I 

 see a single instance of enlarged spleen, or elephantiasis, so frequent 

 among the Fantees. 



2M2 



