68 



NARRATIVE OF AN 



CHAP, green arched branches, naked till near their extremity, 

 XIX 



L,,— ^- when thefe again diverge or digitate in long broad leaves 

 of a pale green colour, and difpofed in an orbicular man- 

 ner with great regularity, not unlike fun-beams, or a 

 lady's fan expanded. As the young branches fpring up 

 from the centre at the fummit, the old ones fade at the 

 bottom and hang downwards, flirivelled and dangling in 

 the wind. From the heart of the green leaves the In- 

 dians draw out long white fibres or threads, as they do 

 from the filk-grafs plant : thefe, being equally flrong, 

 ferve as cords when twifted to firing their bows, to make 

 nets, or to be ufed as threads; from the middle of the 

 branches appears the feed, hanging down alfo in the form 

 of a large rope of onions. I have feen many prints re- 

 prefenting palm-trees, but I muft take the liberty to fay 

 that moft of them are impofitions on the public, having 

 either been executed from fancy, or from a very bad 

 defcription ; but I can affure my readers, that all thofe 

 which I reprefent were taken from nature, and on the 

 fpot : I fpeak of the cocoa-nut tree, the manicola, the 

 mountain - cabbage, and the maureecee trees, whofe 

 branches and leaves are all extremely different from, 

 each other; and I have not confounded the fpecies, as 

 they are rn too many publications. The two firft the 

 reader has already feen; and the two others I now offer to 

 his view, where ^ is the trunk of the mountain- cabbage- 

 tree; jB one of its branches, feparated from the reft, and 

 C the feed or hufky fpatha inclofing it ; D is the trunk of 

 the maureecee-tree, and E one of its branches, dropping 



down a ,. 



