BREAD-FRUIT AND COCOA-PALM. 239 



the greatest number of, and most valuable, discov- 

 eries. Governor Dundas was an enthusiast, and ex- 

 hibited to me many pictures, taken by himself, of the 

 scenery of St. Vincent and Barbados. 



Of the many trees which were introduced into the 

 West Indies none have proved so great a boon to 

 the laboring classes, and bane to the planter, as the 

 bread-fruit. It was at once a success, and from this 

 garden of acclimatization many hundred plants were 

 distributed over the island. The tree would attract 

 attention from the arrangement of its deeply-lobed 

 leaves ; but the great balls of fruit, varying from five 

 to eight inches in diameter, make it a conspicuous 

 object even amongst tropical vegetation. Inside the 

 shell, which when baked is hard, though thin, is a 

 thick flesh like that of a melon. Though I cannot 

 recall any substance that tastes exactly like it, it is 

 certainly very good, and so nutritious that the natives 

 of the islands in which it was discovered subsist upon 

 it almost solely the year through. It is their "daily 

 bread," indeed, and takes the place of the manufac- 

 tured article entirely. It more than fills that place, 

 for those who are dependent upon its bountiful har- 

 vests need scarcely an}- animal food. The people in 

 the favored country of its growth do not need to labor ; 

 a score of trees planted by each man will furnish a 

 supply of food for a lifetime, and he need concern 

 himself about nothing else than sleeping and eating. 

 In its fruitfulness it exceeds even the generous plan- 

 tain, upon which the natives of the tropics subsist 

 almost solely where the bread-fruit is not grown. It 

 dispenses entirely with the labor of the agriculturist, 

 the miller, the baker ; there need be no care for seed- 



