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Updated: May 29, 2025
Having examined the ground thoroughly, to ascertain that it was not inhabited by spiders, like our last camping-place, we built three cabbage-palm huts, and collected fuel sufficient to keep up the fire during the night. Before turning in, we had another talk about our future proceedings.
A large centipede would come out and take a hurried turn round the Governor's seat; or a bat would settle in broad daylight in the curate's hood; or one had to turn away one's eyes lest they should behold not vanity, but the magnificent head of a Cabbage-palm just outside the opposite window, with the black vultures trying to sit on the footstalks in a high wind, and slipping down, and flopping up again, half the service through.
With their venison these men served a very palatable dish made from the terminal bud of the palmetto known as the "cabbage," and from which the tree derives its name of "cabbage-palm." A negro ascended the palm and cut the bud at its junction with the top of the tree. It was then thrown to the ground, and climbing other trees, more followed in quick succession.
Solander; and in the evening the gentlemen returned, with an account that what had been taken for cocoa-nut trees were a small kind of cabbage-palm, and that, excepting about fourteen or fifteen plants, nothing could be obtained which was worth bringing away.
There are a variety of other small trees on the island, but as they are not useful, it is unnecessary to enumerate them here; though I should not omit the fern-tree, the bark of which serves many purposes, instead of twine and rope. The cabbage-palm were in great plenty when I first landed on the island, but, by continual cutting, they were almost destroyed.
About seven o'clock in the evening they returned, with an account that what we had taken for cocoa-nut trees, were a small kind of cabbage-palm, and that, except about fourteen or fifteen plants, they had met with nothing worth bringing away.
Ernest took no notice of their ridicule, but, as soon as he reached the top, struck with his hatchet, and a tuft of tender yellow leaves fell at our feet, which I recognized as the product of the cabbage-palm, a delicate food, highly valued in America. His mother thought it a mischievous act, to destroy the tree thus; but he assured her his prize was worth many cocoa-nuts.
We also collected a stock of provisions to take with us kangaroo and opossum meat, of course; but principally wild honey, cabbage-palm, and roots of various kinds. These preparations took us several days, and by the time we had arranged everything for our journey the weather had become settled once more.
So little do they care for clothing, that even the females wear only a small piece of the bark of a tree, or the net-like covering of the young leaf of the cocoa-nut or cabbage-palm; while their appearance is squalid in the extreme.
At last the truck stopped at a manager's house with a Palmiste, or cabbage-palm, on each side of the garden gate, a pair of columns which any prince would have longed for as ornaments for his lawn. It is the fashion here, and a good fashion it is, to leave the Palmistes, a few at least, when the land is cleared; or to plant them near the house, merely on account of their wonderful beauty.
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