504 



zone. The pine-apple for^is the ornament of 

 the fields near the HavannAh, where it is planted 

 in parallel rows ; on the sides of the Duida it 

 embellishes the turf of the savannahs, lifting it's 

 yellow fruit, crowned with a bunch of silvery 

 leaves, above the setaria, the paspalum, and a 

 few cyperacese. This plant, which the Indians 

 of the Oroonoko call ana-curua, has been propa- 

 gated ever since the sixteenth century in the in- 

 terior of China *, and some English travellers 

 found it recently, together with other plants 

 indubitably American, (maize, cassava, tobacco, 

 and pimento) on the banks of the Rio Congo, in 

 Africa. 



There is no missionary at Esmeralda ; the 

 monk, appointed to celebrate mass in that ham- 

 let, is settled at Santa Barbara, more than fifty 

 leagues distant. It requires four days to go up 

 the river ; and he therefore visits this spot but 

 five or six times in a year. We were cordially 

 received by an old officer, who took us for Ca- 

 talonian shopkeepers, whom our little trade had 

 led to the missions. On seeing packages of 

 paper for the purpose of drying our plants, he 

 smiled at our simple ignorance. " You come," 



* See my Essai polit., vol. i, p. 412. No doubt remains of 

 the American origin of the bromelia ananas. Cayley, Life of 

 Raleigh, vol. i, p. 61." Gili, vol. i, p. 210, 336. Robert 

 Brown, Geogr. Observ. on the Plants of the Congo r 1818, p. 50., 



i 



