cocoa-nuts grow there. The other vegetables enumerated
by Adams in the Narrative, and which he also mentioned
to me, are described by traders as being produced,
generally speaking, throughout Soudan. T).
With respect to dates, Park in his first Journey, mentions
two occasions on which he met with them in Soudan;
first at Gangadi near the Senegal above Galam, where
“ he observed a number of date-trees,” 4to. p. 71: and,
secondly, dates were part of the food set before him by the
Foulah shepherd on the northern confines of Bambarra,
mentioned in p. 182.
Speaking generally of the vegetable productions of
Soudan, Park says p. 250: “ Although many species of
“ the edible roots which grow in the West India Islands are
“ found in Africa, yet I never saw in any part of my
“ journey, either the sugar-cane, the coffee, or the cacao-
“ tree; nor could I learn on inquiry, that they were known
“ to the natives. The pine-apple, and the thousand other
“ delicious fruits which the industry of civilized man has
“ brought to so great perfection in the tropical climates of
“ America, are here equally unknown.”
The pine-apple, however, is well known upon the Gold
Coast, and in the Bight of Benin; and there appears to be
no sufficient reason for doubting that it grows at Tombuctoo.
We have not heard that Africa produces the cacao-tree;
but the sugar-cane and the coffee plant are both amongst
its products. The former is found upon the coasts just
mentioned; and coffee has long been known to grow in
abundance in Abyssinia.
With respect to the cocoa-nut tree, (not the cacao), which
Adams names amongst the vegetable productions, of Tombuctoo,
some doubts of his accuracy in this respect have
arisen; first, in consequence of the opinion that this tree
flourishes only near the shores of the sea; and, secondly,
because Adams was unable to describe its appearance.
But as we are not disposed, on the one hand, to attach
much value to the botanical recollections of a common
sailor, neither do we think, on the other, that much stress
ought to be laid either upon the fact of his having forgotten,
or upon his inability to describe the appearance of any
plants, which he may have seen. It would be by the fruit
which it bore, that we should expect such a person to
recollect any particular tree; and before we reject his
assertion respecting the latter, we ought to consider that he
mentions the former, incidentally, not less than three times
in the course of his Narrative.
Although these circumstances entitle Adams’s statement