CHAPTER 5.
Geographical position of Santo Domingo.—Physical geography.—The inhabitants.—Mixed races.—Negroes and Indians compared.—Women. —Establishment of the Chontales Gold-Mining Company.—My house and garden.—Fruits.—Plantains and bananas; probably not indigenous to America: propagated from shoots: do not generally mature their seeds.—Fig-trees.—Granadillas and papaws.—Vegetables. —Dependence of flowers on insects for their fertilisation.—Insect plagues.—Leaf-cutting ants: their method of defoliating trees: their nests.—Some trees are not touched by the ants.—Foreign trees are very subject to their attack.—Method of destroying the ants.—Migration of the ants from a nest attacked.—Corrosive sublimate causes a sort of madness amongst them.—Indian plan of preventing them ascending young trees.—Leaf-cutting ants are fungus-growers and eaters.—Sagacity of the ants.