At South Bay we came upon a grassy clearing larger than usual,
near a bright stream; its pottery and charred wood showed the
site of the Spanish barracoon destroyed by the British in 1840.
During the last seven years the "patriarchal institution" has
become extinct, and the old slavers who have at times touched at
the island, have left it empty-handed. Corisco had long been
celebrated for cam-wood, a hard and ponderous growth, yielding a
better red than Brazil or Braziletto, alias Brazilete
(Brasilettia, De Cand.) one of the Eucaesalpinieae, a congener of
C. Echinata, which produces the Brazil-wood or Pernambuco-wood of
commerce. In 1679, the Hollander Governor-General of Minas sent
some forty whites to cultivate "Indian wheat and other sort of
corn and plants of Guinea." The design was to supply the Dutch
West Indian Company's ships with grain and vegetables, especially
bananas, which grow admirably; I heard that there are fifteen
varieties upon this dot of dry land. Thus the crews would not
waste time and money at Cape Lopez and the Portuguese islands.
The Dutch colonists began by setting up a factory in a turf
redoubt, armed with iron guns, "the better to secure themselves
from any surprise or assault of the few natives, who are a sort
of wild and mischievous blacks.
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