Digital Grainger

An Online Edition of The Sugar-Cane (1764)

27

  • And black crabs travel from the mountain down;1
  • Thy ducks their feathers prune; thy doves return,
  • In faithful flocks, and, on the neighbouring roof,
  • Perch frequent; where, with pleas’d attention, they [345]
  • Behold the deepening congregated clouds,

  • With sadness, blot the azure vault of heaven.

  • NOW, while the shower depends, and rattle loud
  • Your doors and windows, haste ye housewives, place
  • Your spouts and pails; ye Negroes, seek the shade, [350]
  • Save those who open with the ready hoe
  • The enriching water-course: for, see, the drops,

All of them are perfectly innocent. The Caribbeans used to eat them; they are not inferiour to snakes as a medicated food. Snuff forced into their mouth soon convulses them. They change colour, and become torpid; but, in a few hours, recover. The guana, or rather Iguana,2 is the largest sort of lizard. This, when irritated, will fly at one. It lives mostly upon fruit. It has a saw-like appearance, which ranges from its head all along its back, to its tail. The flesh of it is esteemed a great delicacy. The first writers on the Lues Venerea,3 forbid its use, to those who labour under that disease. It is a very ugly animal. In some parts of South-America, the alligator4 is called Iguana.

VER. 342. And black crabs] Black land-crabs are excellent eating; but as they sometimes will occasion a most violent cholera morbus,5 (owing, say planters, to their feeding on the mahoe-berry6) they should never be dressed till they have fed for some weeks in a crab-house, after being caught by the Negroes. When they moult, they are most delicate; and then, it is believed, never poison. This however is certain, that at that time they have no gall, but, in its stead, the petrifaction called a Crabs-eye is found. As I have frequently observed their great claws (with which they severely bite the unwary) of very unequal sizes, it is probable, these regenerate when broke off by accident, or otherwise.

  1. Probably Gecarcinus ruricola, also known as the black land crab. One of several species of terrestrial or land crabs, the black land crab lives in damp and shaded forest areas inland and migrates in large numbers to the sea to breed. It is one of the most commonly exploited land crabs for human consumption in the Caribbean. Eighteenth-century observers were often fascinated by the mass migration of land crabs. ↩︎

  2. A family of crested lizards (order Squamata, suborder Sauria). More than seven hundred species have been identified; they are found principally in the temperate and tropical Americas. Their flesh and eggs are valued for food. ↩︎

  3. Lues venerea was the medical term used for syphilis (also commonly known by the British as the “French pox”). There were no effective treatments for syphilis until the early twentieth century. ↩︎

  4. The American alligator, Alligator mississippiensis. ↩︎

  5. Cholera morbus is used in modern medicine to describe the water-borne disease caused by Vibrio cholerae. In the eighteenth century, however, it described a variety of illnesses with symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration, and abdominal pain. ↩︎

  6. May be the berries from the blue mahoe (Hibiscus elatus), a tree whose native range is Cuba and Jamaica. Also naturalized to other parts of the Caribbean; now the national tree of Jamaica. ↩︎