286 CONTRIBUTIONS FEOM THE NATIONAL HEKBARITJM. 



The Portuguese are also supposed by Martius and De Candolle to 

 have planted the coconut in their West African settlements, but 

 for this purpose they are more likely to have brought seed from 

 Brazil than from the East Indies." The slave trade brought about 

 early and frequent communication between Angola and Brazil, and 

 several travelers visited and described both countries. Martius, 

 though he does not give his authorities, states that the coco palm 

 was planted in the Portuguese settlements in West Africa. This 

 does not prove, of course, that the coconut was unknown in West 

 Africa before Portuguese times; nor on the other hand does the 

 record by Marcgrave of native Congo names afford sufficient proof 

 that the natives knew the palm before the time of the Portuguese 

 settlements. 



The coco palm continues to be planted at the European settle- 

 ments and trading stations on the West Coast of Africa, but seems 

 not to have extended itself spontaneously nor to have been adopted 

 in cultivation, perhaps because very few of the agricultural natives 

 live on the coast. The Kroo people of Liberia, who have maritime 

 habits, were reported by Doctor Vogel to have superstitious fear 

 of planting coconut palms. 6 This belief seems still to prevail, for 

 the very large Kroo town at Monrovia, though built along the beach, 

 is shaded by no coco palms. 



EARLY NOTICES OF THE COCONUT PALM IN COLOMBIA. 



The presence of coconut palms in the interior of Colombia, as 

 reported by Humboldt and more recent writers, was also recorded by 

 Cieza de Leon, who accompanied the first overland expedition 

 through Colombia. Cieza de Leon came to America in 1532 as a 

 boy of 14, and after passing in military camps and marauding explora- 

 tions the years that lads usually spend in school he began, at the age 

 of 22, the writing of a history, " because others of more learning 

 were too much occupied in the wars to write." Nevertheless, the 

 writings of Cieza give us a clearer picture of the condition of the 

 country and the people than do those of any of the learned historians 



a Cassava and Indian corn, capsicum, peanuts, alligator pears, pineapples, and 

 doubtless other American plants, including American types of cotton, appear to have 

 been introduced into West Africa by the Portuguese at very early dates, and are now 

 widely distributed in that continent. The coconut has remained of little importance 

 in Africa, not being utilized as a source of oil, that of the oil palm (Elaeis) being of 

 better quality and more easily obtainable. 



b "The inhabitants [of Cape Palmas] believe, that whoever plants a Cocoa-palm will 

 die, before it produces fruit (i. e., in about seven years). The Chief of the fishermen 

 yielded at last to the entreaties of the American Governor, and put some Cocoa-nuts 

 on the ground : he then drove cattle over the spot, that he might not incur the con- 

 sequences of planting and covering them with earth!" — Hooker, W. J., Niger Flora, 

 p. 37. (London, 1849.) 



