EXPLANATORY INDEX. 395 



invariable practice is, to roll the thread on the bare thigh, 

 and sometimes this labour is carried on so unceasingly as to 

 cause sores. 



Spindles such as have been described were found in the 

 tombs of the Incas, and several of them came into my posses- 

 sion, together with pieces of the fabrics made from the 

 threads spun by them. 



The species which is so largely cultivated for commerce is 

 Gossypium tricuspidatum. 



COTTON-TREE, (Bombax ceiba). This magnificent tree, some- 

 times called the Silk-Cotton, is among the many wonders of 

 the West Indies, and is admirably described by C. Kingsley 

 in his joyous book At Last : 



"These latter (the Ceibas) are useless as timber; and their 

 roots are, of course, hurtful to the sugar-canes. But the negro 

 is shy of felling the Ceiba. It is a magic tree, haunted by 

 spirits. There are ' too much jumbies in him,' the negro says ; 

 and of those who dare to cut him down some one will die, or 

 come to harm, within the year. 



"'In Jamaica/ says my friend Mr. Gosse, 'they believe 

 that if a person throws a stone at tho trunk, he will be visited 

 with sickness, or other misfortune. When they intend to cut 

 one down, they first pour rum at the root as a propitiatory 

 offering.' The Jamaica negro, however, fells them for canoes, 

 the wood being soft, and easily hollowed. 



" But here, as in Demerara, the trees are left standing about 

 in cane-pieces and pastures to decay into awful and fantastic 

 shapes, with prickly spurs and board-walls of roots, high 

 enough to make a house among them simply by roofing them 

 in ; and a flat crown of boughs, some seventy or eighty feet 

 above the ground, each bough as big as an average English 

 tree, from which dangles a whole world of lianas, matapolos, 

 orchxds, wild pines with long air-roots or grey beards; and 

 last, but not least, that strange and lovely parasite the 

 Rhipsalis cassytka, which you mistake first for a plume of 

 green sea-weed, or a tress of mermaid's hair which has got up 



