EXPEDITION TO SURINAM. 



A melalTes-boat is a barge rowed by two oars, which 

 fetches this commodity in large hogfheads from the fugar 

 plantations, and delivers it on board the Englidi-American 

 veflels for exportation, to be diftilled into rum in the 

 iflands ; for which they pay the Dutch^ on an average,, 

 three guineas per hogfhead. 



On the i6th another officer arrived from our hero un^ 

 der an arreft (the firfl: was a Mr. Geelguin, and this was- 

 a Mr. Neys), for the crime of contending with the free 

 negro Goafary for a bunch of plantains^ Both thefe 

 young men were afterwards fent to Europe by Four- 

 geoud, in expedlation that they would be broke by a 

 court-martial ; but, after a very fhort confinement, they 

 were honourably acquitted, to the joy of the whole corps,, 

 and the mortification of this hetStoring Swifs. Such was^ 

 the inveteracy of this old gentleman, who had not the 

 fmaileft coniideration for the foibles of youth ; and who 

 conftantly faw the mote in the eye of his neighbour, over-< 

 looking the beam that appeared fo confpicuoully in his 

 own. As I have been fpeaking of plantains, I fhall take 

 this occalion to give fome account of a produ(51ion, whichj, 

 in fa6l, I ought to have defcribed long before. 



This is rather a plant than a tree, as the trunk has nei- 

 ther wood nor bark, but confifts of a ftamen enwrapped by 

 green vafcular hufks, fucceeding each other in the man- 

 ner of an onion, and above ten inches in diameter* Thefe 

 hulks rife alternately about fourteen feet diflance from, 

 the ground, and form not in branches? but in leaves, that 



3 B 2 fpread, 



