sed to fatten
their dogs and their fowls, and that the inhabitants themselves have
subsisted upon this alone for several months, when other crops have
failed, and animal food has been scarce.[108] The leaves of this tree
are also put to various uses, they thatch houses, and make baskets,
cups, umbrellas, and tobacco-pipes. The fruit is least esteemed, and as
the blossoms are wounded for the tuac or toddy, there is not much of it:
It is about as big as a large turnip, and covered, like the cocoa-nut,
with a fibrous coat, under which are three kernels, that must be eaten
before they are ripe, for afterwards they become so hard that they
cannot be chewed; in their eatable state they taste not unlike a green
cocoa-nut, and, like them, probably they yield a nutriment that is
watery and unsubstantial.

[Footnote 108: Few things are so nutritious to animals as sugar; and
vegetable substances, in general, are nutritious in proportion to the
quantity of it they contain. How it can be pernicious, then, as an
ingredient in diet, it would be very difficult to show, without
disparaging the wisdom and goodness by which the world is supported. But
in fact there is not the least reason for such an opinion; and if the
strongest assertions of most respectable men are at all to be regarded,
a very different one, indeed, must be maintained. A few quotations may
satisfy the reader on the subject, and dispossess him of unfounded
prejudices _reluctantly_ imbibed in the nursery. "So palatable,
salutary, and nourishing is the juice of the cane, that every individual
of the animal creation drinking freely of it, derives health and vigour
from its use. The meagre and sickly among the negroes exhibit a
surprising alteration in a few weeks after the mill is set in action.
The labouring horses, oxen, and mules, though almost constantly at work
during this season, yet being indulged with plenty of the green tops of
this noble plant, and some of the scummings from the boiling-house,
improve more than at any one period of the year. Even the pigs and
poultry fatten on the refuse." So says Mr Edwards. Two physicians quoted
by him speak to the same effect,--take the words of one of them; Dr
Rush, of Philadelphia,--"Sugar affords the greatest quantity of
nourishment in a given quantity of matter, of any substance in nature.
Used alone, it has fattened horses and cattle in St Domingo, for a
period of several months. The plentiful use of sugar in diet is one