72 Sarrorp: Notes or a NATURALIST AFLOAT—IV 
eaneers in cultivating cacao, mandioca, and tobacco. 
It was through these outlaws that the French first gained 
a footing on the island of Hispaniola. 
At Mole Saint Nicolas was the point where Columbus 
first set foot on the island of Hispaniola. The landing 
place at the time of our arrival must have been very 
much the same as it was at the time of the discovery, 
for there was no sign of a wharf and we were obliged to 
jump out of our boat and wade ashore. As one of our 
men-of-war had recently cut a telegraph cable leading 
m the Mole to the island of Cuba, we met with a 
cold reception at the hands of the Frenchman in charge 
Of the cable station; and when we asked him for news 
__ he had nothing to tell us, although we afterwards learned 
at on the day preceding our arrival the Americans had 
without resistance on the island of Porto Rico. 
She our stay was very short I had little opportunity — 
o observe the vegetation of the eastern part of the island. os 
‘Adi did, however, listen to some very pretty Creole French 
poken iy the: colored wife of the Frenchman in charge 
of he cle — I have since been able to supple- 
ment my botanical notes from a work by a Dominican — 
- friar, Pare Niedbass entitled Essai sur ’histoire naturelle — 
S de Saint Domingue, published in Paris in 1776; and from 
S . the Flore des Antilles by F. R. de Tussac, who lived on 
e _ the is'and at the time of the terrible insurrection of the 
a blacks. ‘The former work was — ty the botanss ae 
27) 
EEE 
— inter ! es tia acount it gives, fost a col- 
ists point « of 7 view, of the conditions of life on the 
