S T. J A G O. 69 
of delicious fruits. The finest oranges I ever tasted were 
those of St. Jago ; citrons equally good ; guavas, figs, bananas, 
cocoa nuts, and annonas or custard apples, all very fine and 
sufticiently abundant. We procured also some culinary roots 
and vegetables, but not in great plenty ; and they consisted 
.chiefly of sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and water melons. The 
trees and shrubs in the vallies seemed to have sufiered little 
from the long drought. The stem of an Adansonia or monkey 
bread-fruit tree measured fifty-six feet in circumference and, 
with the branches, eighty feet in height. The tamarind trees 
were large and spreading. The cocoa nut and papaya trees 
were loaded with fruit ; and the indigo and cotton shrubs, 
though of spontaneous growth, were larger and more luxuriant 
than I remember to have seen them elsewhere except in Rio 
de Janeiro. The asciepias gigaiitea was a common shrub 
that fiourislied v/ith vigour ; and another species produced, in 
its large cylindrical pods, a beautiful silky down used for 
stuffing mattresses and pillows. But we observed no kind of 
grain. Rice and Guinea corn used to be tlie common food 
of the people, but the surface of the ground was said to have 
long been impenetrable by the spade. In a temperature, in- 
deed, in which the thermometer of Fahrenheit rarely descends 
below 80°, and frequently rises bej/ond 90°, it will readily be 
conceived that such must necessarily be the case, without fre- 
quent and copious showers of rain. The mercury stood 
generally at 84°, and once rose to 88°, during our stay. 
In more favourable seasons, this island alone has been able 
to furnish refreshments for very considerable fleets of ship- 
