FOREIGN DRIFT OF THE TURKS ISLANDS 155 



in the New World rather than in the Old World; and it would 

 almost seem that Nature in the form of the Gulf Stream drift, 

 stranded on the shores of Europe, makes a silent protest against our 

 viewing this tree as a stranger in America, 



There is, however, a way out of the difficulty. It is possible that 

 Cassia fistula may have been the gift of Africa to America through 

 the agency either of the Main or of the North Equatorial Current 

 before the discovery of the New World, but in the earlier period of 

 the European colonisation of West Africa. In the first case the 

 floating pods could have been transported in two or three months 

 from the Gulf of Guinea to Brazil, and no doubt many of the seeds 

 would still be sound. In the second case, where the agency of the 

 North Equatorial Current is appealed to, the floating pods could 

 have been carried in six or seven months from the vicinity of the 

 Cape Verde Islands to one of the Lesser Antilles, and perhaps a few 

 of their seeds would still be germinable. The intervention of the 

 aborigines of the New World would be required ; but one can imagine 

 that the discovery of such a singular fruit on the beach might tempt 

 one of the more curious among the natives to plant its seeds. The 

 tree must have been long established on the West Coast of Africa and 

 on the Cape Verde Group. In those two localities in the middle of 

 last century it was beginning to grow wild (Schmidt's Cap Verdische 

 Flora, 1852). 



Though it is feasible that Cassia fistula may have been introduced 

 into South America by the currents, assisted, as just suggested, by 

 the subsequent intervention of the aborigines, it can hardly be 

 doubted that the early Spaniards were the agents in establishing it 

 in the West Indies. Sloane in his book on Jamaica (II., 42) quotes 

 Martyr to the effect that it was planted in Hispaniola, Cuba, and 

 Jamaica by the Spaniards. Sloane was writing of his experiences 

 in the latter part of the seventeenth century, when, as he indicates, 

 there was a trade to Europe from the New World in the fruits of 

 this tree, the Brazilian fruits being regarded as superior to those 

 from Egypt. In 1688-9, during his sojourn in Jamaica, the tree 

 was frequently to be met with around houses and on the sites of 

 plantations during the Spanish time. He takes the similar history of 

 the Tamarind (Tamarindus indica), which, having been first planted 

 at Acapulco by the Spaniards, was in his time widely spread over the 

 West Indies. The case of the Tamarind appears to be decisive in 

 this matter. 



Calophyllum calaba, Jacq. 



This West Indian and South American tree, with which I made 

 my first acquaintance in the forests of Mount Diavolo in Jamaica, 

 calls for only a few remarks. It contributes scantily to West Indian 

 beach-drift ; but it cannot be compared, either in its station or in the 

 buoyancy of its fruits, with Calophyllum inophyllum, the well-known 

 current-dispersed tree of the coral atoll and of the coral-girt shores 

 of the Pacific. 



Calophyllum calaba, the familiar Santa Maria tree of the West 

 Indies, is a conspicuous feature of the wet forests of Jamaica and 



