ETHNOGRAPHY OF LEW CHEW. 45 



Wherever the eye is cast, it may he seen, even in the smallest valleys between the hills, provided 

 there he any means of watering it. It is, moreover, of a very fine quality, and, when hoiled 

 becomes as white as snow. The jungle and sedgeweed grow very luxuriantly on the eastern 

 shore. Sugar-cane in the south is quite ahundant, hut it is very small; apparently, on account 

 of the great length of time it is allowed to grow in the same tracts without heing transplanted. 

 The land, however, in many places is admirably adapted to its culture, and, by proper care and 

 attention, elegant and valuable sugar-plantations might he formed. Bamboo is as important, 

 if not more so, than the rice to the natives. It serves them in numerous building purposes; as 

 food ; enters into the manufacture of their clothing ; and, around the houses and along the streets 

 of the villages, forms most beautiful evergreen hedges. 



The cryptogamous class of plants is quite large, and affords some of the most handsome trees 

 and shrubs to be found in the island. Of ferns {filices) I saw nine species, five of which are beau- 

 tiful tree-ferns, and grow in great abundance in the northern and southern portions. The other 

 four are small and herbaceous. The algce are found in but few species. Lichens are only occa- 

 sionally seen, and do not afford much variety. 



Parasitic plants in some places abound to some extent, but I could pay them but little atten- 

 tion, and shall, therefore, say nothing more in relation to them. 



This ends what I have to say of the botany pf Lew Chew. It is, of course, a mere outline; 

 but even so far as it extends, the arrangements and classification are not complete, for neither 

 the proper means nor time were at my command to make it so. For the majority of trees- and 

 plants, the season had not arrived to allow them to be studied to advantage. Very few of them 

 were flowering, and seldom could any be found containing seeds. In reference to the Cryptogami 

 I have said but a very few words, for I had no means of investigating them properly; indeed, 

 they are so numerous as to require the closest attention and a great deal of time to do them 

 anything like justice; and I have, therefore, been content with merely mentioning some of the 

 most striking. During our excursion over the island, I gathered about a hundred different 

 specimens of plants, some of which are noticed in this report, but the majority have not been 

 spoken of. They have been carefully pressed and preserved, and are now in charge of Dr. 

 Morrow. 



R 



Having finished what I had to say of the vegetable kingdom, I proceed at once to the animal 

 kingdom, or, in other words, to the ethnography of the Lew Chewans. This part of the study 

 of nature is not less interesting than that which we have just ended; indeed, in some respects it 

 is more so, for it has for its object the investigation of our own species — the natural history of 

 man. The former, was the study of matter merely endowed with organic life; the latter, that 

 possessed not only of this principle, but likewise of animal life, pr the life of relation — in other 

 words, of thought, and intelligence, and locomotion ; those ennobling endowments which, in a 

 manner, ally man to the Creator of all animate and inanimate matter. While the general 

 characteristics of all races of men are the same, and lead us to the natural conclusion that they 

 had a common origin, there are yet peculiarities sufficiently striking to show that, some time 

 since the creation, some great cause has produced many divisions and alienations, so as to make 

 some naturalists even doubt their original identity. It is my intention, now, to endeavor to 

 trace to its origin a small branch of the great Mongolian division of man — a people hitherto 

 but little known, and scarcely noticed by any writers upon ethnography. The only accounts 

 we have of them are some general remarks made by the English officers who have, from time to 



