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Curiosities Respecting Vegetables (Day but this was only when he)

day, but this was only when he felt some symptoms of an approaching fever. By this precaution he preserved himself, during the five years he resided at Senegal, from the diarrhea and fever, which are so fatal there, and which are however, the only diseases of the place; while other officers suffered very severely, only one of them excepted, upon whom M. Adanson prevailed to use this remedy, which for its simplicity was despised by the rest. This ptisan alone prevents that heat of urine which is common in these parts, from the month of July to November, provided the person abstains from wine. The fruit is not less useful than the leaves and the bark. The pulp that envelopes the seeds has an agreeable acid taste, and is eaten for pleasure: it is also dried and powdered, and used medicinally in pestilential fevers, the dysentery, and bloody flux: the dose is a drachm, passed through a fine sieve, taken either in common water, or in an infusion of the plantain. This powder is brought into Europe under the name of terra sigillata Lemnia. The woody bark of the fruit, and the fruit itself, when spoiled, help to supply the negroes with an excellent soap, which they make by drawing a lie from the ashes, and boiling it with palm-oil that begins to be rancid. The trunks of such of these trees as are decayed, the negroes hollow out into burying places for their poets, musicians, and buffoons. Persons of these characters they esteem greatly while they live, supposing them to derive their superior talents from sorcery, or a commerce with demons; but they regard their bodies with horror when dead, and will not give them burial in the usual manner, neither suffering them to be put into the ground, nor thrown into the sea or any river, because they imagine that the water would not then nourish the fish, nor the earth produce its fruits. The bodies shut up in these trunks become dry without rotting, and form a kind of mummies without the help of embalming. The baobal is very distinct from the calabash-tree of America, with which it has been confounded by Father Labat.

The following is an account of a REMARKABLE OAK TREE:- Behold the oak does young and verdant stand Above the grove, all others to command; His wide-extended limbs the forest crown'd, Shading the trees, as well as they the ground:

Young murm'ring tempests in his boughs are bred, And gathering clouds from round his lofty head; Outrageous thunder, stormy winds, and rain, Discharge their fury on his head in vain; Earthquakes below, and lightnings from above, Rend not his trunk, nor his fix'd root remove.

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