7G 
TRINIDAD, 
water-nielous, &c., wliicli are agreeable and cooling in a 
hot conntry. Tlie granadilla is a very line frnit, and is- 
treated in an aiistocratic manner. It is a fruit like a 
pumpkin in shape, and like a puinpkin in being filled 
■with seeds. It grows on a vine, which oidy thrives on 
an arbour. The blossom is a violet colour, not unlike 
what is here called the passion-flower. Tlie seeds are 
taken from the frnit and mixed with wine, nutmeg, &c., 
and is considered quite a delicacy. For cooling the 
thirsty heated mouth, the water-melon is most agreeable 
and wholesome. The mnsk-nielon is a smaller fruit, tlie 
end of which you biti? oft' S(pieeze the fruit in your 
hand with the opening to your mouth, and you get a 
vci’}' palatable mouthful. 
Grapes of all kinds grow in Trinidad, and Avould be 
much more largely grouni than they are were it not for 
the parasol ant, which insects are most numerous, A'exa- 
tious, and destructive — numerous in themselves, vexa- 
tious to the garden, and destructive to the A'ine. . These 
ants are red — those in the towns ; their county cousins 
are Iflack, but whether red or black they carry ^larasols 
over their heads, much to the annoyance of those who 
have gardens. They are al)Out half an Inch long, -with 
most formidable mandibles, with which they cut out 
half-round pieces of the leaves of the plant they infest, 
and having cut out as much as they want, they hoist it 
in triumph over their head, and so firmly hold it in their 
forceps that you may lift the leaf and they will not 
slack their hold. They come in lumdreds of thousands, 
innumerable, and when all nature is still, when the stars 
are shining, they make their attack on tlie defenceless 
plant, and in the morning you see the skeleton with its 
bones picked. After the leaves have been once stripjied, 
the ])lant will put forth new ones, but upon a repetition 
of the onslaught, is often too weakened to reclothc- 
itself, and soon pines, and withers, and dies. The reader- 
will say, why not destroy the ants? True, gimtle reader, 
most willingly would we destroy these night iqarauders 
