7© 
TRAVELS IN' 
ver white flowers, each refembling a tulip or lily. 
Thefe flowers are fucceeded by a large fruit, nearly 
of the form and fize of a (lender cucumber, which 
when ripe, is of a deep purple colour, the fkin 
fmooth and Alining, its pulp foft, very juicy, and 
of an agreeable aromatic flavour, but rather bitter 
to the tafte ; it is, however, frequently eaten, but 
if eaten to excefs, proves violently purgative. The 
feeds are numerous, flat, and lunated. 
The plant, or tree, when grown old, fometimes 
divides into two or three items, which feem of 
equal height and thicknefs, and indeed nearly of the 
fame thicknefs with the main Hem ; but generally, 
when they arrive to this age and magnitude, their 
own weight brings them to the ground, where they 
foon decay, the heart or pith firft, leaving a hol- 
low fibrous reticulated trunk or fleeve, which like- 
wife foon after decays, and in fine, all is again re- 
duced to its original earth, and replaces the vegeta- 
tive mould. But the deceafed are foon replaced by 
others, as there are younger ones of all ages and 
ilature, ready to fucceed their predecefTors, and 
flourifh for a time, with the fame regal pomp and 
fplendor. Thefe plants are fo multitudinous, where- 
ever they get a footing, that the earth is completely 
occupied by them, and fcarcely any other vegetable 
is to be feen, where they are ; yet they are fome- 
times fcattered amonglt other trees and vegetables. 
In three days after leaving Amelia, we arrived at 
the Cow-ford, a public ferry, over St. John's, about 
thirty miles above the bar or capes, the river here 
being above a mile wide. 
Mr. Egan, after procuring a neat little fail-boat 
for me, at a large indigo plantation near the ferry, 
and 
