342 DESCRIPTION OF SAVU CHAP, xv 



palms that I have seen requires a poetical imagination to 

 describe, and a mind not unacquainted with such sights to 

 conceive. 



The productions of this island are buffaloes, sheep, hogs, 

 fowls, horses, asses, maize, guinea corn, rice, calevances, limes, 

 oranges, mangroves, plantains, water-melons, tamarinds, 

 sweet sops (Annona); blimbi (Averrhoa lilimbi}, besides 

 cocoanuts and fan-palms, which last are in sufficient quantity, 

 should all other crops fail, to support the whole island, 

 people, stock, and all, who have at times been obliged to 

 live upon its sugar, syrup, and wines for some months. We 

 saw also a small quantity of European garden herbs, as 

 celery, marjoram, fennel, and garlic, and one single sugar- 

 cane. Besides these necessaries, it has for the supply of 

 luxury betel and areca, tobacco, cotton, indigo, and a little 

 cinnamon, only planted for curiosity, said Mr. Lange ; indeed, 

 I almost doubt whether or not it was genuine cinnamon, as 

 the Dutch have been always so careful not to trust any 

 spices out of their proper islands. Besides these were prob- 

 ably other things which we had not an opportunity of see- 

 ing, and which Mr. Lange forgot or did not choose to 

 mention. 



All their produce is in amazing abundance, so we judged 

 at least from the plantations we saw, though this year every 

 crop had failed for want of rain. Most of them are well 

 known to Europeans : I shall, however, spend a little ink in 

 describing such only as are not, or as differ at all in appear- 

 ance from those commonly known. To begin then with 

 buffaloes, of which they have got good store ; these beasts 

 differ from our cattle in Europe in their ears, which are 

 considerably larger, in their skins, which are almost without 

 hair, and in their horns, which, instead of bending forwards 

 as ours do, bend directly backwards, and also in their total 

 want of dewlaps. We saw some of these as big as well- 

 sized European oxen, and some there must be much larger ; 

 so at least I was led to believe by a pair of horns which 

 I measured : they were from tip to tip 3 feet 9|- inches, 

 across their widest diameter 4 feet 1|- inch; the whole 



