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We went for miles through woods with small timber, but full of bright crotons, dracaenas, bamboos, and a very sweetscented plant somewhat resembling the frangipani, the flower of which covered the ground. We passed under the shade of sweet-scented wild lemon and shaddock trees, but we got the bad with the good, as a horrible stench came from a small green flowering bush.
By this time, the palm-tree covered more or less of every island; and the orange, lime, shaddock and other similar plants, filled the air with the fragrance of their flowers, or rendered it bright with the golden hues of their fruits. In short, everything adapted to the climate was flourishing in the plantations, and plenty reigned even in the humblest dwelling.
It is about the size of the shaddock, and, when fresh gathered, the flavour of the citron; but it is always eaten baked, when it has the solidity of a roasted chestnut. Besides these luxuries, we had some fish nicely cooked, which we ate with the thick interior of the cocoa-nut, which may truly be called the cream, while the juice served to quench our thirst.
One Sunday, at day-break, their mothers having gone to mass at the church of Shaddock Grove, the children perceived a negro woman beneath the plantains which surrounded their habitation. She appeared almost wasted to a skeleton, and had no other garment than a piece of coarse cloth thrown around her.
This sea which bears us would rot and poison, did it not sweep in and out here twice a day in swift refreshing current; nay, more, in the very water which laps against our bows troops of negro girls may have hunted the purblind shark in West Indian harbours, beneath glaring white-walled towns, with their rows of green jalousies, and cocoa- nuts, and shaddock groves.
The freshness of the air, by giving a tension to the nerves, was favourable to the Europeans. From those heights, situated near the middle of the island, and surrounded by extensive forests, you could neither discern Port Louis, the church of the Shaddock Grove, nor any other object which could recall to Paul the remembrance of Virginia.
If these interesting women had something to suffer from the world, their homes on that very account became more dear to them. No sooner did Mary and Domingo, from this elevated spot, perceive their mistresses on the road of the Shaddock Grove, than they flew to the foot of the mountain in order to help them to ascend.
For to have the name "Snuffey" brought forward it is what the heart can forgive, but never forget in this valley of the shaddock. I have nussed a many lunacies, Betsy, and in a general way am dispoged to humour them rather than set them right up agin the fire when fractious.
At a distance it had the appearance of one entire orchard of fruit trees, where were mingled together the pyramidal orange, in fruit and in flower, the former in all its stages from green to dropping ripe, the citron, lemon, and lime trees, the stately, glossy leaved star apple, the golden shaddock and grape fruit, with their slender branches bending under their ponderous yellow fruit, the cashew, with its apple like those of the cities of the plain, fair to look at, but acrid to the taste, to which the far famed nut is appended like a bud, the avocada, with its brobdignag pear, as large as a purser's lantern, the bread fruit, with a leaf, one of which would have covered Adam like a bishop's apron, and a fruit for all the world in size and shape like a blackamoor's head; while for underwood you had the green, fresh, dew spangled plantain, round which in the hottest day there is always a halo of coolness, the coco root, the yam and granadillo, with their long vines twining up the neighbouring trees and shrubs like hop tendrils, and peas and beans, in all their endless variety of blossom and of odour, from the Lima bean, with a stalk as thick as my arm, to the mouse pea, three inches high, the pineapple, literally growing in, and constituting, with its prickly leaves, part of the hedgerows, the custard apple, like russet bags of cold pudding, the cocoa and coffee bushes, and the devil knows what all, that is delightful in nature besides; while aloft, the tall graceful cocoa nut, the majestic palm, and the gigantic wild cotton tree, shot up here and there like minarets far above the rest, high into the blue heavens.
Monsieur de la Bourdonnais sent to apprise me secretly that the corpse of Virginia had been borne to the town by his order, from whence it was to be transferred to the church of the Shaddock Grove.
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