96 ISLES OF SUMMER. 
A northern person naturally looks for the tamarind upon tropi- 
cal vines, but it grows in green pods, in great abundance, upon 
trees tall and widespread. Negroes frequently brought for sale 
to the court of the hotel a few of the green pods. They were 
purchased, not so much for use, but as objects of curiosity, 
although the tamarinds, when unpreserved, have a pleasant acid 
taste, and, with the aid of sugar, make a palatable drink. From 
the tamarinds of commerce the pods are removed, but the seeds 
are enveloped in a second covering, and are connected together 
with a fibrous string, as the reader has no doubt observed. 
The trees of the Bahamas which grow valuable timber are 
principally pitch pine, Madeira mahogany, horse flesh mahogany, 
olive, cassava, mastic, fustic, cedar, button, white and black 
torch, satin and lignum vite. 
Some Bahama trees, like the cinnamon, are valuable for their 
bark; others, like the logwood, for their dyes; while certain trees 
and many plants possess valuable medicinal qualities. 
While at the Bahamas, we were more than ever before im- 
pressed with that Divine Wisdom which pervades, as with a 
living spirit, the most common phenomena of nature. If man 
_ should first observe them in the maturity of his intellectual pow- 
ers, he would be lost and overwhelmed in wonder and astonish- 
ment. In the early dawn of his existence, before the reflecting 
and reasoning faculties are developed, he sees and accepts them 
as facts, and thus swallows unawares and without difficulty, 
whole caravans of camels. Having thrived upon such a diet, 
and experienced no injury from his childish credulity, it seems 
foolish, in the later stages of life, to wrench and strain himself 
over the little troublesome gnats that float, like moats in sun- 
beams, in an atmosphere mysterious and apparently supernatural. 
Living upon the same meagre diet of rock, water, air and sun- 
shine—and upon nothing else—it seems incredible that the small 
