A Crowd Of Men, Women, And Children,
Was Collected On The Memorable Point Venus, Ready To
Receive Us With Laughing, Merry Faces.
They marshalled
us towards the house of Mr. Wilson, the missionary of the
district, who met us on the road, and gave us a very friendly
reception.
After sitting a very short time in his house, we
separated to walk about, but returned there in the evening.
The land capable of cultivation, is scarcely in any part
more than a fringe of low alluvial soil, accumulated round
the base of the mountains, and protected from the waves of
the sea by a coral reef, which encircles the entire line of
coast. Within the reef there is an expanse of smooth water,
like that of a lake, where the canoes of the natives can ply
with safety and where ships anchor. The low land which
comes down to the beach of coral-sand, is covered by the
most beautiful productions of the intertropical regions. In
the midst of bananas, orange, cocoa-nut, and bread-fruit
trees, spots are cleared where yams, sweet potatoes, and
sugar-cane, and pine-apples are cultivated. Even the brushwood
is an imported fruit-tree, namely, the guava, which
from its abundance has become as noxious as a weed. In
Brazil I have often admired the varied beauty of the
bananas, palms, and orange-trees contrasted together; and
here we also have the bread-fruit, conspicuous from its large,
glossy, and deeply digitated leaf. It is admirable to behold
groves of a tree, sending forth its branches with the vigour
of an English oak, loaded with large and most nutritious
fruit.
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