Notes

The mahagua tree furnishes that curious fibrous network which is known as bast, and used to wrap bundles of cigars in. The mahogany tree is called caoba in Spanish, apparently the original Indian name, as the Spaniards probably first became acquainted with it in Cuba. Is our word “mahogany” the result of a confusion of words, and corrupted from “mahagua?”

We heard talk elsewhere, however, of a war going on in the interior of the country between the white inhabitants and the Indian race; the apparent object of the whites being to take Indian prisoners, and ship them off for slaves to Cuba.