306 
SCENES IN THE PACIFIC. 
and all manner of esculent roots. The European vine was 
also introduced extensively, and yielded grapes of the tinest 
quality. From these grapes, wines were made which were 
equal in excellence to those of the Canary Islands. The 
orange, lemon, lime, citron, prune, plantain, pine-apple, and 
other tropical fruits, were also planted, and yielded abundant 
crops. These articles are still cultivated by the present inhabit¬ 
ants. They also rear, as of old, horses, black cattle, mules, 
goats, and a few hogs. But the gross amount of all these 
products, in a country where there is so little fruitful land, is 
very small; and in fact the people, though not numerous, are 
unable, on those barren shores, to supply themselves at all 
times with the necessaries of life. 
But, there is, in the constriction of the Universe, a great 
compensatory law, which, when one blessing is withheld, 
grants another in its stead. So here, while the land is deso¬ 
late, the sea is stored with an incredible abundance and variety 
of fish. Only a few of them can be named ; the halibut, 
salmon, turbot, skate, pilchard, large oyster, thornback, 
mackerel, barbel, bonitos, soles, lobsters, crabs, sardines, cod, 
tunnies, anchovies, and pearl oysters. These fish are all of 
the finest quality, and exceedingly numerous. In a word, the 
waters of Lower California are so rich, that, although the land 
be dreary and for the most part a leafless waste, the country 
would be a valuable acquisition to any commercial nation. 
The value of the pearl oyster alone would authorize us to 
make this remark. There are immense beds of these in the 
Gulf. In the language of the Naturalists this is a testaceous 
fish of the genus mya> species margaritifera ; which being 
translated into the language of common sense means, that the 
pearl oyster is a kind of water animal, living between a pair 
of shells like any other gentleman oyster. And this gentle¬ 
man they tell us is sometimes afflicted with disease at one end 
of himself; and having none of Sands’ Sarsaparilla where¬ 
withal to effect a cure, a little stony concretion of the carbon¬ 
ate of lime is collected, or to use words which are accustomed 
