120 ALLIGATOR PEAR. 
us that they may thus be used not only with safety, but 
even with advantage, as assisting digestion. 
The berries or fruit of the bay tree, which have an 
aromatic smell, and a warm, bitterish, and pungent 
taste, were much used by the ancient Romans for 
culinary purposes. We import them chiefly from the 
coasts of the Mediterranean. From the berries, in a 
recent state, the people of Spain and Italy obtain, by 
pressure, a green aromatic oil, which is employed in 
medicine, externally, as a stimulant in nervous, para- 
lytic, and other disorders. 
131. The ALLIGATOR PEAR is a pear-shaped fruit, 
produced by a species of lay tree (Laurus persea), that is much 
cultivated in the West Indies. 
This tree, which is an evergreen, has a straight stem, and 
grozcs to a considerable height. Its leaves are somewhat oval, 
leathery, transversely veined, and of beautiful green colour; and 
t/ie flowers grow in bunches. 
To the inhabitants of the West Indian islands, par- 
ticularly the negroes, this fruit, which ripens in the 
months of August and September, is an agreeable, and, 
in some respects, an important article of diet. When 
ripe the pulp is of yellow colour, of consistence some- 
what harder than that of butter, and, in taste, not much 
unlike marrow. The negroes frequently make their 
meals of these pears, a little salt, and plantains ; and 
they are occasionally served up at the tables of the 
white people as fruit. 
Their exterior surface is covered with a green skin ; 
and in the centre there is a large round seed or stone, 
extremely hard and woody, with an uneven surface. 
This stone is used for the marking of linen. The cloth 
is held or tied over the stone ; and the letters are 
pricked by a needle, through the cloth, into the outer 
covering of the stone. By this means it is stained of an 
indelible reddish brown colour, in the direction along 
which the needle has passed. The leaves are used by 
the negroes medicinally. 
