Narrative, of a five years' expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana on the Wild Coast of South America; from the year 1772 to 1777 ... Volume 2 (of 2)Stedman, John Gabriel
History
Narrative, of a five years' expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam, in Guiana on the Wild Coast of South America; from the year 1772 to 1777 ... Volume 2 (of 2)
Stedman, John Gabriel
Indians of South America -- Guiana; Slavery -- Suriname -- History -- 18th century; Stedman, John Gabriel, 1744-1797 -- Travel -- Suriname; Suriname -- Description and travel; Suriname -- History -- To 1814
almond, but is more tender and more delicious; when cut in pieces and
boiled, it eats like cauliflower: it may be also peeled in the
above-mentioned long thin flakes, and then it makes an excellent
sallad; but too much of it, whether eaten raw or dressed, is
unwholesome, as it is apt to occasion a diarrhœa. It is in the cavity,
after the cabbage is removed from it, that a black beetle deposits its
spawn, from which the palm-tree worms are produced, which feed on the
remaining tender substance when it begins to rot, till they acquire the
size already mentioned; though those in the manicole tree, and other
trees of the palm species, grow not so large, are less sweet, and are
also differently shaped.
The maureecee tree, by the French called latanie, is certainly the
tallest of all the palm-tree species; or, indeed, of any species in the
forest of Guiana. And I can aver, that I have seen some of these trees
whose lofty summits appeared to rise no less than a hundred feet from
the surface of the earth, while the circumference of their trunks was
about ten or twelve feet where thickest; the trunk of this tree is
largest at about one-fourth of its height from the root, whence it
tapers not only upwards but downwards also: this singularity has
perhaps escaped all other writers. It is of a light brown or grey
colour, and divided in joints all the way upwards to its branches, when
(but at a great height, and near the top) it diverges in long green
arched branches, naked till near their extremity, when these again
diverge or digitate in long broad leaves of a pale green colour, and
disposed in an orbicular manner with great regularity, not unlike
sun-beams, or a lady’s fan expanded. As the young branches spring up
from the centre at the summit, the old ones fade at the bottom and hang
downwards, shrivelled and dangling in the wind. From the heart of the
green leaves the Indians draw out long white fibres or threads, as they
do from the silk-grass plant: these, being equally strong, serve as
cords when twisted to firing their bows, to make nets, or to be used as
threads; from the middle of the branches appears the seed, hanging down
also in the form of a large rope of onions. I have seen many prints
representing palm-trees, but I must take the liberty to say that most
of them are impositions on the public, having either been executed from
fancy, or from a very bad description; but I can assure my readers,
that all those which I represent were taken from nature, and on the
spot: I speak of the cocoa-nut tree, the manicola, the
mountain-cabbage, and the maureecee trees, whose branches and leaves
are all extremely different from each other; and I have not confounded
the species, as they are in too many publications. The two first the
reader has already seen; and the two others I now offer to his view,
where A is the trunk of the mountain-cabbage-tree; B one of its
branches, separated from the rest, and C the seed or husky spatha
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