The Bermuda Islands, Part III [pp. 376-379]

THE BERMA
than even the holly or hawthorn hedges of the
Emerald Isle.
And walking through these quiet vales you
will sometimes come upon the banana groves.
A rather curious tree is the banana, not large,
the trunk made up of a porous substance containing, myriads of water-cells, and covered with
several folds of thin, brown bark. It grows
smoothly and taperingly to the height of six or
eight feet, and then unfolds its curving, broad,
smooth, grass-like leaves. Out of the heart of
the tree, half hidden by the foliage, comes the
bunch of scores of figs attached to a strong,
central fibrous stalk. A tree only bears one
bunch of bananas and then withers away, but
firom its roots there spring up shoots which
perpetuate the family and the fruitfulness. The
groves, with their green, broad leaves, and the
pendent bunches of golden fruit, make a very
pleasant scene, not at all impaired by the
imemory of the taste which comes up with the
law of association.
The orange groves are nearer the dwellings,
as though they courted the culture and admiration of the inmates; and they certainly deserve
themn, for in the Spring time the air is filled
is itlI the delicate perfume of blossoms, and the
green fruit are already hidden among the leaves,
becomiing, month by month, more golden, until
thev drop in real, rounded, ripeness into your
hand. And the grape fruit and shladdock are
so closely kindred in species to the orange that
they can not be distinguished from one another
)by the leaf or flower; but the grape,fruit is
larger than the orange, lighter colored, more
spheroidal, and the pulp has a pleasant bitter
taste. Tile shladdock is larger than the grape
fruit again, of about the same hue, and the
pulp is pinkish as well as slightly bitter of
taste. Oranges in Bermuda used to be very
fine and lplentiful, but of late years some blight
seems to have come upon the trees.
And in these orchards are other fruit-trees
someNwhat rare; the avocado pear, for instance,
titlh its neat leaves and large, pear-shlaped
fruit, covered with smooth, shining skin, and
pull) gathered around a large central seed,
which pulp being cut into longitudinal sections,
is eaten with salt and pepper as a vegetable
butter; and the sugar apple, its rough green
skin divided into sections by deep crossing
parallel lines, and the inside filled with a white
substance sweet as sugar, gathered around polished black seeds; and the custard apple,
lw hose brown skin covers a cup of uncooked
custard; and of smaller fruits there are Surinam cherries, too beautiful almost, in their
shining, ribbed redness, to be eaten; and the
:DA ISLANDS.
377
yellow loquat, growing to be a great favorite
with its tart sweetness; and the strawberry,
very fine when cultured; and the peach, which
used to be most luscious, but insects are injuring it now.
Of other trees, not so desirable for their
fruit, the palmnetto-which rustles its fan-like
leaves in the breeze-has been sung by Wallek
in rather fanciful strains
"The sweet palmettos a new Bacchus yield,
With leaves as ample as the broadest shield,
Under the shadows of whose friendly boughs
They sit carousing where their liquor grows."
At the present more prosaic times, if they sit
at all beneath the "friendly boughs," it is to
weave beautiful baskets out of the palmetto
straws. And the calabash is a tree of many
irregular branches, with a large, round, unedible fruit, which, when equally divided, and the
halves are cleared of their seedy pulp, the thick
rind makes good bowls for the use of the peasantry. The tree is sacred to Moore in Bermuda, who cut his name upon the trunk of one
of them, and wrote rather bacchanal verses beneath its shade:
"'T was thus in the shade of the calabash-tree,
With a few who could feel and remember like me,
The charm that to sweeten my goblet I threw
With a sigh to the past and a blessing to you.
Last night when we came from the calabash-tree,
When my limbs were at rest, and my spirit was free,
The glow of the grape and the dreams of the day,
Set the magical springs of my fancy at play."
The islands are the favorite beds of many
fragrant herbs and beautiful flowers. It was a
wonder to me, when a boy, and wandering about
the woody paths of Bermuda, how so many spicy
herbs came to be growing wildly along the roadside and in more retired places; but afterward,
on consulting the books, I found that in the
earliest time of the plantations the commissioners sent out from England various seeds,
such as mint, and sage, and thyme, and fennel,
and basil, and marjoram; and these seeds have
ever since been thriving in the damp, shady
places of Bermuda. Roses of the finest varieties are here, and geraniums of all kinds spread
their fragrant beds and flowers on the hillsides; but our writing must be only of rarer
plants. Here, then, is the snuff-plant, with its
pointed leaf and wreaths of yellow flowersmore honeyed in their breath than snuff-like,
I think-and the night-blooming cereus is a
homely cactus to look upon, but, opening its
flower of ghostly whiteness upon the midnight
darkness, it fills all the region with the intense
sweetness of its pure life, but withers before
the golden morning can behold its beauty.