S4 VEGETABLE SUBSTANCES. 



were not, however, allowed to remain long undisputed 

 occupiers of this coast. The French now attempted 

 to supplant, or to share with them in this lucrative 

 employment, and invaded their privilege by cutting 

 logwood on those parts of the coast the productions 

 of which had been assigned to the English by the 

 last treaty. Although this had forbidden them to 

 raise fortifications, it had at the same time not only 

 given to them the right of cutting and shipping log- 

 wood, but of erecting houses and magazines, toge- 

 ther with the privilege of a free fishery in the adjacent 

 seas, on that part of the coast of the bay of Hon- 

 duras, which was comprehended between the river 

 Wallis on the south side, and the Rio Nuevo and the 

 Rio Hondo on the north side, the sovereignty of the 

 country still remaining with Spain. The privileged 

 settlers of Campeachy of course treated the French 

 as intruders, and were forced again to contend for 

 the right of being undisputed wood hewers in a tro- 

 pical morass. 



The logwood-tree is of very rapid growth and 

 easy of propagation, so that in a few years a flou- 

 rishing plantation may be formed. It thrives best in 

 marshy ground, but this ground must not be always 

 under water. Trees of full growth are from sixteen 

 to twenty-four feet in height, and sometimes five 

 or six feet in circumference. The stems are in 

 general very crooked and deformed ; the bark is 

 in young trees white and smooth, but blackish and 

 rough in old ones ; irregular branches armed with 

 strong thorns shoot forth on every side. The shiny 

 bright green leaves are winged, having three pair of 

 lobes indented at the top. The flowers grow in clus- 

 ters, springing from the wings of the leaves. They 

 are of a very pale yellow hue, with a purple empale- 

 ment. Dampier and others were struck with the 

 resemblance the logwood-tree bears to our beautiful 

 and fragrant hawthorn. 



