Flesh
Is Dear In This Island; A Cow Costing Ten Dollars, And One Goat Or Two
Sheep A Dollar.
Their cattle have good firm and fat beef, like those in
England.
The goats are large, and have good flesh; and the sheep are
small with coarse wool. The goats and sheep are very abundant. They make
very good butter, but it is always soft like cream, and is sold for
four-pence or six-pence a pound. Goat's milk may be bought for
three-pence the quart. Plenty of hens may be had, at the rate of five
for a dollar, or about twelve-pence each. In the whole island there are
not above two or three small horses of the Arab breed, and a few camels.
At Delisha they take great quantities of lobsters and other good fish.
A few cotton plants are found growing on the strand; where likewise
there grows among the stones a shrubby plant, having large thick round
green leaves, as big as a shilling, with a fruit like capers, of which
it is a kind, called eschuc, and is eaten in sallads. Oranges are
scarce and dear. There is very fine sweet bazil. On the shore, many fine
shells are found, mixed with cuttle-fish bones, and vast quantities of
pearl-oyster shells, which the people say are driven thither by the
winds and waves, as no pearl-oysters are to be found here-about. The
people are very poor, and rank beggars, who buy what they are able and
beg all they can get, yet are honest and give civil usage.
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