408 DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. XXIV.—B. P. 
formerly flourished not only on this river, hut at many 
other places in Mosquito. 
A great deal of mahogany has been obtained from 
the Blewfields river, and, no doubt, a great deal still 
remains to be taken away ; it may, therefore, be worth 
while in this place to give a short descriptive account 
of the tree itself, and of the way in which it is cut 
and shipped. 
The mahogany attains the greatest size and grows 
most abundantly between the parallel of the tropic of 
Cancer and the tenth degree of north latitude. It is 
generally to be seen on elevated ridges, and is by 
no means confined to a fertile soil; on the contrary, 
the trees which have attained the greatest size are 
mostly those which grow on stony ground. 
The Spaniards have the merit of discovering the 
value of mahogany, having used it for shipbuilding 
soon after the discovery of the Hew World, somewhere 
about the year 1530. It is frequently mentioned by 
the earlier navigators; Sir Walter Raleigh repaired 
his ships with it in 1597 ; and Darnpier, in 1681, took 
all his vessels to St. Andrew’s and Old Providence, on 
the Mosquito coast, to carry out the necessary repairs 
and to make canoes, because those islands were then 
plentifully stocked with the wood. 
Mahogany was not imported into England until 
1724, and then only came into repute by mere accident. 
Some few planks were sent to a relative in London by 
the captain of a merchant ship tra din g with the West 
Indies; but the carpenters of that day declared that 
it was too hard to use, so it was made up merely as 
