106 



and they remain in great perfection for many 

 months, provided they are dug up carefully, but the 

 slightest wound with the spade is sufficient to rot 

 them. Catalue (a species of spinach) is a principal 

 article in their pepper-pots ; but in this parish their 

 most valuable and regular supply of food arises from 

 the cocoa-finger, or coccos, a species of the yam, 

 but which lasts all the year round. These vegetables 

 form the basis of negro sustenance ; but the slaves 

 also receive from their owners a regular weekly 

 allowance of red herrings and salt meat, which 

 serves to relish their vegetable diet ; and, indeed, 

 they are so passionately fond of salted provisions, 

 that, instead of giving them fresh beef (as at their 

 festival of Saturday last), I have been advised to 

 provide some hogsheads of salt fish, as likely to 

 afford them more gratification, at such future addi- 

 tional holidays as I may find it possible to allow 

 them in this busy season of crop. 



January 15. 



The offspring of a white man and black woman 

 is a mulatto; the mulatto and black produce a 

 sambo; from the mulatto and white comes the 

 quadroon; from the quadroon and white the mus- 

 tee ; the child of a mustee by a white man is called 

 a musteefino; while the children of a musteefino 

 are free by law, and rank as white persons to all 

 intents and purposes. I think it is Long who 

 asserts, that two mulattoes will never have children; 



