Man's Footsteps. 23 
land ploughed over, with the curious result of a fair crop 
of turnips. If the turnip seed could remain so long in 
the earth without losing its vitality, it is almost impossible 
to place a limit to the life of other seeds ; it may there- 
fore be quite possible that the weeds of forest clearings 
may have been lying dormant since the time that the 
trees first grew on the same localities. 
Traces of the white man's footsteps are quite common 
along the banks of the rivers in this colony. The 
Dutchman's wind-mill or sugar house is gone, the plan- 
tation that once resounded with the cries of slaves under 
the driver's whip, is overgrown with forest trees, but 
here and there the Botanist will notice his footprints. 
In cutting a path through the bush he may come upon a 
cocoa tree, bread-fruit, or a few mangoes still holding 
their own in the struggle for existence. Some approxi- 
mation to the date of a clearing may be gleaned from 
these living relics of the care taken by the former pro- 
prietors of these plantations. When a large mango tree 
is hanging over a creek it may be surmised that a clearing 
existed at some later period than the beginning of this 
century as it was not till 1782 that the first plants of this 
wide-spread fruit-tree were introduced into the West 
Indies. The stories of the cultivated plants of tropical 
America are very interesting, and show the great per- 
severance of our ancestors. The great care taken of the 
first coffee plants, the distribution of the sugar-cane, and 
the introduction of the plantain, have stories that are 
almost romantic. We are indebted to the French for 
many of our exotics and among the rest the mango. In 
1782 a vessel was despatched from Mauritius with a 
quantity of mango and cinnamon plants, as well as 
