1696.] DIVERS NATURAL PRODUCTIONS. 199 



somewhat that of Aloes.^ The description we have of the 

 Ananas of Brasilc, differs something from this. They have 

 httle Leaves that come out on all sides between the grains 

 of the Fruit. 



The Banane Planf^ is large and fine, it rises about ten or 

 twelve foot out of the Ground, and has very large Leaves of 

 an Oval Figure. It bears a Fruit as long as one's Hand, 

 and of the bigness of the fist of a Child of four years old. 

 It is outwardly yellow when 'tis ripe, white within, a little 

 clammy like the inside of an Apricock, and of a delicate 

 and excellent Flavour. 



There are also to be found in this Island, Coco's/ 



1 In orig. : " de I'Aloe," presumably the aKo-q of Dioscorides and 

 Pliny ; the bitter aloe of Africa. Leguat's editor bases his description 

 of this fruit on the fuller details given by M. de Rochefort in his 

 History of the Antilles ( /. c, p. 248), of the Bromelia fastuosa, whose 

 leaf is likened by that writer to the •^Alues'\ meaning perhaps the agave 

 of America. 



2 The Banana or Plantain, Miisa paradisiaca, var. 



" The Banana-tree grows everywhere. It has no wood or stock, 

 being only a tuft of flowers, which springs up in columns, and blows at 

 the top in large and long leaves, of a beautiful satinny green. At the 

 end of a year there issues from the summit a long stem, all hung with 

 fruit, in the form of a cucumber ; two of these stems are a load for a 

 black ; the fruit, which is mealy, is also very jileasant and nutritive. 

 The blacks are very fond of it, and it is given to them on the 1st of 

 January as a New- Year's gift ; they count their years of sorrow by the 

 number of banana-feasts they have regaled at. Linen cloth might be 

 made from the thread of the banana-tree. The shape of the leaves 

 like belts of silk, the length of its stem, the upper joart of which hangs 

 down from the height of a man, and whose violet colour at the end 

 gives it the look of a serpent's head, may have occasioned its being 

 called by the name of Adam's fig-tree. This fruit lasts all the year ; 

 there are many sorts of it, from the size of a plum to the length of a 

 man's arm." (Bernardin de St. Pierre, op. cit., p. 123.) 



3 Cocos nuciftra. " The Coco -tree is planted here; 'tis a kind of 

 palm, which thrives in the sand ; this is one of the most useful trees in 

 the Indian trade, though it affords nothing else than a bad sort of oil and 

 cables as bad in their kind. It is reckoned at Pondicherry that each coco- 

 tree is worth a pistole a year. Travellers speak much in praise of its 



