we 
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Fruits of Cuba. 229 
" ae verdant mamey, first her song should praise : 
e, the first natives of these TIER gm. 
Fl throng still sacred hel ay * 
fro e high-flavored 3A abstained 
With pious awe ; i thine high-flavored fruit 
The airy phantoms of their friends deceased 
Joyed to regale on. Such their simple creed.” 
Large and high-flavored the fruit certainly is, but 
much too solid in its texture, one would think, to be 
proper food for “airy phantoms.” Itis noble in its 
size, as large as a shaddock, or as one's head, globular, 
with a protuberance or mamelon at the end opposite the 
stalk, and covered with a russet skin. The pulp is of 
a close and firm consistency, like that of our quince or 
cling-stone peach, and of a yellow color. The flavor 
also resembles: that of the peach, though it is more aro- 
matic. It is eaten in its fresh state, but more com- 
monly as a jam or marmalade, in which form it is one 
of the most exquisite of preserves. Rogers, in his 
* Voyage of Columbus,” introduces, more poetically 
‘than Grainger, the idea of the natives respecting the 
fruit-eating shades of their friends. 
«There odorous lamps adorned the festal rite, 
Whose steadfast looks a secret ae va nese 
Not there forgot.the sacred fruit 
At nightly feasts the Spirits of in ese 
Mingling in scenes that mirth to mortals give, 
But by their sadness known from those e live, 
= There met, as erst, within the wonted grov 
x Unmarried girls and youths that died for love! 
- Sons now beheld their ancien again, 
And sires, ges their sons in battle slain!” 
The Spanish author, however, Peter Martyr, quoted by 
