CHAP. IV.] 
WEST INDIES. 
H5 
PIEMENTO, or ALLSPICE. 
I CLOSE my catalogue with one of the most 
elegant productions in nature; a production which 
rivals the most valuable species of the East, com¬ 
bining the flavour and properties of many of those 
spices; and forming (as its popular name denotes) 
an admirable substitute and succedaneum for them 
all. 
The piemento tree grows spontaneously, and in 
great abundance, in many parts of Jamaica, but 
more particularly on hilly situations near the sea, 
on the northern side of that island; where they 
form the most delicious groves that can possibly be 
imagined; filling the air with fragrance, and giving 
reality, though in a very distant part of the globe, 
to our great poet’s description of those balmy gales, 
which convey to the delighted voyager 
“ Sabean odours from the spicy shore 
“ Of Araby tire blest.-- 
M Cheer’d with the grateful smell, Old Ocean smiles.” 
This tree is purely a child of nature, and seems 
to mock all the labours of man in his endeavours 
Vol. III. 
T 
