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History of Louisisana by Le Page Du Pratz

L >> Le Page Du Pratz >> History of Louisisana




They have great numbers and a variety of kinds of walnut-trees in
this country. There is a very large kind, the wood of which is almost
as black as ebony, but very porous. The fruit, with the outer shell,
is of the size of a large hen's egg: the shell has no cleft, is very
rough and so hard as to require a hammer to break it. Though the fruit
be very relishing, yet it is covered with such a thick film, that few
can bestow the pains of separating the one from the other. The natives
make bread of it, by throwing the fruit into water, and rubbing it
till the film and oil be separated from it. If those trees were
engrafted with the French walnut, their fruit would probably be
improved.

Other walnut-trees have a very white and flexible wood. Of this wood
the natives make their crooked spades for hoeing their fields. The nut
is smaller than ours, and the shell more tender; but the fruit is so
bitter that none but perroquets can put up with it.

The Hicori bears a very small kind of nut, which at first sight one
would take for filberts, as they have the same shape and colour, and
their shell is as tender, but within they are formed like walnuts.
They have such an excellent relish, that the French make fried cakes
of them as good as those of almonds.

Louisiana produces but a few filberts, as the filbert requires a poor
gravelly soil which is not to be met with in this {214} province,
except in the neighbourhood of the sea, especially near the river
Mobile.

[Illustration: Sweet Gum or Liquid-Amber]

The large chesnuts are not to be met with but at the distance of one
hundred leagues from the sea, and far from rivers in the heart of the
woods, between the country of the Chactaws and that of the Chicasaws.
The common chesnuts succeed best upon high declivities, and their
fruit is like the chesnuts that grow in our woods. There is another
kind of chesnuts, which are called the Acorn chesnuts, as they are
shaped like an acorn, {215} and grow in such a cup. But they have the
colour and taste of a chesnut; and I have often thought that those
were the acorns which the first of men were said to have lived upon.

The Sweet-Gum, or Liquid-Ambar (Copalm) is not only extremely common,
but it affords a balm, the virtues of which are infinite. Its bark is
black and hard, and its wood so tender and supple, that when the tree
is felled you may draw from the middle of it rods of five or six feet
in length. It cannot be employed in building or furniture, as it warps
continually; nor is it fit for burning on account of its strong smell;
but a little of it in a fire yields an agreeable perfume. Its leaf is
indented with five points like a star.

I shall not undertake to particularize all the virtues of this
Sweet-Gum or Liquid-Ambar, not having learned all of them from the
natives of the country, who would be no less surprised to find that we
used it only as a varnish, than they were to see our surgeons bleed
their patients. This balm, according to them, is an excellent
febrifuge; they take ten or a dozen drops of it in gruel fasting, and
before their meals; and if they should take a little more, they have
no reason to apprehend any danger. The physicians among the natives
purge their patients before they give it them. It cures wounds in two
days without any bad consequences: it is equally sovereign for all
kinds of ulcers, after having applied to them for some days a plaster
of bruised ground-ivy. It cures consumptions, opens obstructions; it
affords relief in the colic and all internal diseases; it comforts the
heart; in short, it contains so many virtues, that they are every day
discovering some new property that it has.




CHAPTER III.

Of Forest Trees.


Having described the most remarkable of their fruit trees, I shall now
proceed to give an account of their forest trees. White and red cedars
are very common upon the coast. The incorruptibility of the wood, and
many other excellent properties which are well known, induced the
first French settlers to build their houses of it; which were but very
low.

{216} [Illustration: Cypress]

Next to the cedar the cypress-tree is the most valuable wood. Some
reckon it incorruptible; and if it be not, it is at least a great many
years in rotting. The tree that was found twenty feet deep in the
earth near New Orleans was a cypress, and was uncorrupted. Now if the
lands of Lower Louisiana are augmented two leagues every century, this
tree must have been buried at least twelve centuries. The cypress
grows very straight and tall, with a proportionable thickness. They
commonly {217} make their pettyaugres of a single trunk of this tree,
which will carry three or four thousand weight, and sometimes more. Of
one of those trees a carpenter offered to make two pettyaugres, one of
which carried sixteen ton, and the other fourteen. There is a cypress
at Baton Rouge, a French settlement twenty-six leagues above New
Orleans, which measures twelve yards round, and is of a prodigious
height. The cypress has few branches, and its leaf is long and narrow.
The trunk close by the ground sometimes sends off two or three stems,
which enter the earth obliquely, and serve for buttresses to the tree.
Its wood is of a beautiful colour, somewhat reddish; it is soft,
light, and smooth; its grain is straight, and its pores very close. It
is easily split by wedges, and though used green it never warps. It
renews itself in a very extraordinary manner: a short time after it is
cut down, a shoot is observed to grow from one of its roots exactly in
the form of a sugar-loaf, and this sometimes rises ten feet high
before any leaf appears: the branches at length arise from the head of
this conical shoot. [Footnote: This is a mistake, according to
Charlevoix.]

The cypresses were formerly very common in Louisiana; but they have
wasted them so imprudently, that they are now somewhat rare. They
felled them for the sake of their bark, with which they covered their
houses, and they sawed the wood into planks which they exported at
different places. The price of the wood now is three times as much as
it was formerly.

The Pine-tree, which loves a barren soil, is to be found in great
abundance on the sea coasts, where it grows very high and very
beautiful. The islands upon the coast, which are formed wholly of
shining sand, bear no other trees, and I am persuaded that as fine
masts might be made of them as of the firs of Sweden.

All the south parts of Louisiana abound with the Wild Laurel, which
grows in the woods without any cultivation: the same may be said of
the stone laurel, but if a person is not upon his guard he may take
for the laurel a tree natural to the country, which would communicate
its bad smell to every thing it is applied to. Among the laurels the
preference ought to be {218} given to the tulip laurel (magnolia)
which is not known in Europe. This tree is of the height and bulk of
one of our common walnut-trees. Its head is naturally very round, and
so thick of leaves that neither the sun nor rain can penetrate it. Its
leaves are full four inches long, near three inches broad, and very
thick, of a beautiful sea-green on the upperside, and resembling white
velvet on the under-side: its bark is smooth and of a grey colour; its
wood is white, soft and flexible, and {219} the grain interwoven. It
owes its name to the form of its great white flowers, which are at
least two inches broad. These appearing in the spring amidst the
glossy verdure of the leaves, have a most beautiful effect. As the top
is naturally round, and the leaves are ever-green, avenues of this
tree would doubtless be worthy of a royal garden. After it has shed
its leaves, its fruit appears in the form of a pine apple, and upon
the first approach of the cold its grain turns into a lively red. Its
{220} kernel is very bitter, and it is said to be a specific against
fevers.

[Illustration: _Magnolia_ (on p. 218)]

[Illustration: _Sassafras_ (on p. 219)]

The sassafras, the name of which is familiar to botanists on account
of its medicinal qualities, is a large and tall tree. Its bark is
thick, and cracked here and there; its wood is some what of the colour
of cinnamon, and has an agreeable smell. It will not burn in the fire
without the mixture of other wood, and even in the fire, if it should
be separated from the flaming wood, it is immediately extinguished as
if it were dipped in water.

The maple grows upon declivities in cold climates, and is much more
plentiful in the northern than the southern parts of the colony. By
boring it they draw from it a sweet syrup which I have drunk of, and
which they alledge is an excellent stomachic.

The myrtle wax-tree is one of the greatest blessings with which nature
has enriched Louisiana, as in this country the bees lodge their honey
in the earth to save it from the ravages of the bears, who are very
fond of it, and do not value their stings. One would be apt to take it
at first sight, both from its bark and its height, for that kind of
laurel used in the kitchens. It rises in several stems from the root;
its leaf is like that of the laurel, but not so thick nor of such a
lively green. It bears its fruit in bunches like a nosegay, rising
from the same place in various stalks about two inches long: at the
end of each of those stalks is a little pea, containing a kernel in a
nut, which last is wholly covered with wax. The fruit, which is very
plentiful, is easily gathered, as the shrub is very flexible. The tree
thrives as well in the shade of other trees as in the open air; in
watry places and cold countries, as well as in dry grounds and hot
climates; for I have been told that some of them have been found in
Canada, a country as cold as Denmark.

This tree yields two kinds of wax, one a whitish yellow, and the
other green. It was a long time before they learned to separate them,
and they prepared the wax at first in the, following manner. They
threw the grains and the stalks into a large kettle of boiling water,
and when the wax was detached {221} from them, they scummed off the
grains. When the water cooled the wax floated in a cake at the top,
and being cut small, bleached in a shorter time than bees wax. They
now prepare it in this manner; they throw boiling water upon the
stalks and grains till they are entirely floated, and when they have
stood thus a few minutes, they pour off the water, which carries the
finest wax with it. This wax when cold is of a {222} pale yellow
colour, and may be bleached in six or seven days. Having separated the
best wax, they pour the water again upon the stalks and grains, and
boil all together till they think they have separated all the wax.
Both kinds are exported to our sugar islands, where the first is sold
for a hundred sols the pound, and the second for forty.

[Illustration: TOP: _Myrtle Wax Tree_--BOTTOM: _Vinegar tree (Acacia or
Locust)_ (on p. 221)]

This wax is so brittle and dry that if it falls it breaks into several
pieces; on this account however it lasts longer than that of France, and
is preferred to it in our sugar islands, where the latter is softened by
the great heats, and, consumes like tallow. I would advise those who
prepare this wax to separate the grain from the short stalk before they
boil it, as the stalk is greener than the grain, and seems to part easily
with its colour. The water which serves to melt and separate the wax is
far from being useless. The fruit communicates to it such an astringent
virtue, as to harden the tallow that is melted in it to such a degree,
that the candles made of that tallow are as firm as the wax candles of
France. This astringent quality likewise renders it an admirable specific
against a dysentery or looseness. From what I have said of the myrtle
wax-tree, it may well be believed that the French of Louisiana cultivate
it carefully, and make plantations of it.

The cotton-tree (a poplar) is a large tree which no wise deserves the
name it bears, unless for some beards that it throws out. Its fruit
which contains the grain is about the size of a walnut, and of no use;
its wood is yellow, smooth, somewhat hard, of a fine grain, and very
proper for cabinet work. The bark of its root is a sovereign remedy
for cuts, and so red that it may even serve to dye that colour.

The acacia (locust) is the same in Louisiana as in France, much more
common, and less streight. The natives call it by a name that
signifies hard wood, and they make their bows of it because it is very
stiff. They look upon it as an incorruptible wood, which induced the
French settlers to build their houses of it. The posts fixed in the
earth must be entirely {223} stripped of their bark, for
notwithstanding their hardness, if the least bark be left upon them
they will take root.

[Illustration: _Poplar ("Cotton Tree")_]

The holm-oak grows to a surprising bulk and height in this country; I
have seen of them a foot and a half diameter, and about 30 feet from
the ground to the lowest branches.

The mangrove is very common all over America. it grows in Louisiana
near the sea, even to the bounds of low water mark. It is more
prejudicial than useful, inasmuch as {224} it occupies a great deal of
good land, prevents sailors from landing, and affords shelter to the
fish from the fishermen.

[Illustration: _Black Oak_]

Oak-trees abound in Louisiana; there are some red, some white, and
some ever-green. A ship-builder of St. Maloes assured me that the red
is as good as the ever-green upon which we set so high a value in
France. The ever-green oak is most common toward the sea-coasts, and
near the banks of rivers, consequently may be transported with great
ease, and {225} become a great resource for the navy of France.
[Footnote: Eleven leagues above the mouth of the Mississippi, on the
west side, there is great plenty of ever-green oaks, the wood of which
is very proper for the timbers of ships, as it does not rot in water.
_Dumont_, I. & 50.

Accordingly the best ships built in America are well known to be those
that have their timbers of ever-green oak, and their plank of cedar,
of both which there are great plenty on all the coasts of Louisiana.]
I forgot to mention a fourth kind of oak, namely the black oak, so
called from the colour of its bark. Its wood is very hard, and of a
{226} deep red. It grows upon the declivities of hills and in the
savannahs. Happening after a shower of rain to examine one of these
which I cut down, I observed some water to come from it as red as
blood, which made me think that it might be used for dying.

[Illustration: _Linden or Bass Tree_ (on p. 225)]

The ash is very common in this country; but more and better upon the
sea-coasts than in the inland parts. As it is easy to be had, and is
harder than the elm, the wheel-wrights make use of it for wheels,
which it is needless to, ring with iron in a country where there are
neither stones nor gravel.

The elm, beech, lime, and hornbeam, are exactly the same in Louisiana
as in France; the last of these trees is very common here. The bark of
the lime-tree of this country is equally proper for the making of
ropes, as the bark of the common lime; but its leaf is twice as large,
and shaped like an oblong trefoil leaf with the point cut off.

The white woods are the aspen, willow, alder and liart. This last
grows very large, its wood is white and light, and its fibres are
interwoven; it is very flexible and is easily cut, on which account
they make their large pettyaugres of it.




CHAPTER IV.

Of Shrubs and Excrescences.


The ayac, or stinking-wood, is usually a small tree, seldom exceeding
the thickness of a man's leg; its leaf is of a yellowish green,
glossy, and of an oval form, being about three inches in length. The
wood is yellow, and yields a water of the same colour, when it is cut
in the sap: but both the wood and the water that comes from it have a
disagreeable, smell. The natives use the wood for dying; they cut it
into small bits, pound them, and then boil them in water. Having
strained this water, they dip the feathers and hair into it, which it
is their custom to dye first yellow, and then red. When they intend to
use it for the yellow dye, they take care to cut the wood in the
winter, but if they want only a slight colour they never mind the
season of cutting it.

{227} [Illustration: _Box Elder or Stink-wood Tree_]

The machonchi, or vinegar-tree, is a shrub with leaves, somewhat
resembling those of the ash; but the foot-stalk from which the leaves
hang is much longer. When the leaves are dry the natives mix them with
their tobacco to weaken it a little, for they do not love strong
tobacco for smoaking. The wood is of an astringent nature, and if put
into vinegar makes it stronger.

{228} [Illustration: TOP: _Cassine or Yapon_--BOTTOM: _Tooth-ache Tree or
Prickly Ash_]

The cassine, or yapon, is a shrub which never grows higher than 15
feet; its bark is very smooth, and the wood flexible. Its leaf is very
much indented, and when used as tea is reckoned good for the stomach.
The natives make an intoxicating liquor from it, by boiling it in
water till great part of the liquor evaporate.

The tooth-ache tree does not grow higher than 10 to 12 feet. The
trunk, which is not very large, is wholly covered over with {229}
short thick prickles, which are easily rubbed off. The pith of this
shrub is almost as large as that of the elder, and the form of the
leaf is almost the same in both. It has two barks, the outer almost
black, and the inner white, with somewhat of a pale reddish hue. This
inner bark has the property of curing the tooth-ach. The patient rolls
it up to the size of a bean, puts it upon the aching tooth, and chews
it till the pain ceases. Sailors and other such people powder it, and
use it as pepper.

[Illustration: TOP: _Passion Thorn or Honey Locust_--BOTTOM: _Bearded
Creeper_]

{230} [Illustration: _Palmetto_]

The passion-thorn does not rise above the height of a shrub; but its
trunk is rather thick for its height. This shrub is in great esteem
among the Natches; but I never could learn for what reason. Its leaf
resembles that of the black thorn; and its wood while it is green is
not very hard. Its prickles are at least two inches long, and are very
hard and piercing; within half an inch of their root two other small
prickles grow out from them so as to form a cross. The whole trunk is
covered {231} with these prickles, so that you must be very wary how
you approach it, or cut it.

The elder-tree is exactly like that of France, only that its leaf is a
little more indented. The juice of its leaves mixed with hog's lard is
a specific against the haemorrhoids.

The palmetto has its leaves in the form of an open fan, scolloped at
the end of each of its folds. Its bark is more rough and knotty than
that of the palm-tree. Although it is less than that of the East
Indies, it may however serve to the same purposes. Its wood is not
harder than that of a cabbage, and its trunk is so soft that the least
wind overturns it, so that I never saw any but what were lying on the
ground. It is very common in Lower Louisiana, where there are no wild
oxen; for those animals who love it dearly, and are greatly fattened
by it, devour it wherever they can find it. The Spanish women make
hats of its leaves that do not weigh an ounce, riding-hoods, and other
curious works.

The birch-tree is the same with that of France. In the north they make
canoes of its bark large enough to hold eight persons. When the sap
rises they strip off the bark from the tree in one piece with wedges,
after which they sew up the two ends of it to serve for stem and
stern, and anoint the whole with gum.

I make not the least doubt but that there are great numbers of other
trees in the forests of Louisiana that deserve to be particularly
described; but I know of none, nor have I heard of any, but what I
have already spoken of. For our travellers, from whom alone we can get
any intelligence of those things, are more intent upon discovering
game which they stand in need of for their subsistence, than in
observing the productions of nature in the vegetable kingdom. To what
I have said of trees, I shall only add, from my own knowledge, an
account of two singular excrescences.

The first is a kind of agaric or mushroom, which grows from the root
of the walnut-tree, especially when it is felled. The natives, who are
very careful in the choice of their food, gather it with great
attention, boil it in water, and eat it with {232} their gruel. I had
the curiosity to taste of it, and found it very delicate, but rather
insipid, which might easily be corrected with a little seasoning.

The other excrescence is commonly found upon trees near the banks of
rivers and lakes. It is called Spanish beard, which name was given it
by the natives, who, when the Spaniards first appeared in their
country about 240 years ago, were greatly surprised at their
mustachios and beards. This excrescence appears like a bunch of hair
hanging from the large branches of trees, and might at first be easily
mistaken for an old perruque, especially when it is dancing with the
wind. As the first settlers of Louisiana used only mud walls for their
houses, they commonly mixed it with the mud for strengthening the
building. When gathered it is of a grey colour, but when it is dry its
bark falls off, and discovers black filaments as long and as strong as
the hairs of a horse's tail. I dressed some of it for stuffing a
mattress, by first laying it up in a heap to make it part with the
bark, and afterwards beating it to take off some small branches that
resemble so many little hooks. It is affirmed by some to be
incorruptible: I myself have seen of it under old rotten trees that
was perfectly fresh and strong.




CHAPTER V.

_Of Creeping Plants._


The great fertility of Louisiana renders the creeping plants extremely
common, which, exclusive of the ivy, are all different from those
which we have in France. I shall only mention the most remarkable.

The bearded-creeper is so called from having its whole stalk covered
with a beard about an inch long, hooked at the end, and somewhat thicker
than a horse's hair. There is no tree which it loves to cling to so much
as to the sweet gum; and so great is its sympathy, if I may be allowed
the expression, for that tree, that if it grow between it and any other
tree, it turns solely towards the sweet gum, although it should be at
the greatest distance from it. This is likewise the tree upon which
{233} it thrives best. It has the same virtue with its balm of being a
febrifuge, and this I affirm after a great number of proofs. The
physicians among the natives use this simple in the following manner.
They take a piece of it, above the length of the finger, which they
split into as many threads as possible; these they boil in a quart of
water, till one third of the decoction evaporate, and the remainder is
strained clear. They then purge the patient, and the next day, upon the
approach of the fit, they give a third of the decoction to drink. If the
patient be not cured with the first dose, he is again purged and drinks
another third, which seldom fails of having the wished-for effect. This
medicine is indeed very bitter, but it strengthens the stomach; a
singular advantage it has over the Jesuits bark, which is accused of
having a contrary effect.

There is another creeper very like salsaparilla, only that it bears
its leaves by threes. It bears a fruit smooth on one side like a
filbert, and on the other as rough as the little shells which serve
for money on the Guinea coast. I shall not speak of its properties;
they are but too well known by the women of Louisiana, especially the
girls, who very often have recourse to it.

Another creeper is called by the native physicians the remedy against
poisoned arrows. It is large and very beautiful; its leaves are pretty
long, and the pods it bears are narrow, about an inch broad, and eight
inches long.

The salsaparilla grows naturally in Louisiana, and it is not inferior
in its qualities to that of Mexico. It is so well known that it is
needless to enlarge upon it.

The esquine partly resembles a creeper and partly a bramble. It is
furnished with hard spikes like prickles, and its oblong leaves are
like those of the common creeper (liane;) its stalk is straight, long,
shining, and hard, and it runs up along the reeds: its root is spungy,
and sometimes as large as one's head, but more long than round.
Besides the sudorific virtue which the esquine possesses in common
with the salsaparilla, it has the property of making the hair grow,
and the women among the natives use it successfully with this view.
{234} They cut the root into small bits, boil them in water, and wash
their heads with the decoction. I have seen several of them whose hair
came down below their knees, and one particularly whose hair came
lower than the ankle bones.

[Illustration: TOP: _Bramble_--BOTTOM: _Sarsaparilla_]

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Turkey is restoring the citizenship of its most famous 20th century poet Nazim Hikmet over 50 years after it branded him a traitor.

Hikmet, a communist who died in exile in Moscow in 1963, was imprisoned in Turkey for more than a decade. He was stripped of his Turkish nationality in 1951 because of his communist views, but despite a ban on his poetry which remained in place until 1965, has remained one of Turkey's best-loved poets. His work, much of which was written in prison, including his masterpiece Human Landscapes, has been translated into more than 50 languages.

"This is very good news," said Richard McKane, Hikmet's English translator. "The restoration of his Turkish citizenship is long overdue: the people of Turkey and his readers are owed that."

Immortalised by Pablo Neruda, with whom he shared the Soviet Union's International Peace Prize in 1950, with the lines "Thanks for what you were and for the fire / which your song left forever burning", Hikmet was also supported by Jean-Paul Sartre and Pablo Picasso. Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk, when given the editorship for a day of Turkish newspaper Radikal two years ago, used the example of Hikmet in his cover story to criticise the lack of freedom of expression in Turkey. In 2000, 500,000 Turks petitioned the government to restore Hikmet's citizenship rights and repatriate his remains.

Deputy prime minister Cemil Cicek told the Associated Press that it was time for the government to change its mind about Hikmet. "The crimes which forced the government to strip him of his citizenship at that time are no longer considered a crime," the BBC quoted him as saying.

Hikmet, whose remains are currently in Russia, had said that he wished to be buried in Turkey in his 1953 poem Testament, translated by Ruth Christie. "Friends if it's not my lot to see the day / of independence... / if I die before that day / - and it seems I will - / bury me in a village graveyard in Anatolia / and if it's fitting / and a plane tree grows at my head, / then there's no need for a gravestone or anything else."

Cicek said that Hikmet's family would now decide whether to ship his remains back to his homeland.

Hikmet introduced free verse to Turkey in the 1930s, with his themes ranging from war to love. Despite his imprisonment he retained a deep passion for Turkey. "I love my country", he wrote in one of his poems. "I swung in its lofty trees, I lay in its prisons. Nothing relieves my depression like the songs and tobacco of my country."

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