Page 228
An.1685
Cochineel.
hand; and having carried out one heap of Chests, they seized on another great pile of a different mark from the rest, intending to carry them away next. But a Spanish Gentleman, their Prisoner, knowing that there was a great deal more than they could carry away, desired them to take only such as belonged to the Merchants, (whose Marks he undertook to shew them) and to spare such as had the same Mark with those in that great Pile they were then entring upon: because, he said, those Chests belonged to the Ship-Captains, who fol- lowing the Seas, as themselves did, he hoped they would for that reason rather spare their Goods than the Merchants. They consented to his Request: but upon their opening their Chests (which was not before they came to Jamaica, where by conni- vance they were permitted to sell them) they found that the Don had been too sharp for them; the few Chests which they had taken of the same Mark with the great Pile proving to be Otta, of greater value by far than the other; whereas they might as well have loaded the whole Ship with Otta, as with Indico.
The Cochineel is an Insect, bred in a sort of Fruit much like the Prickle Pear. The Tree or Shrub that bears it is like the Prickle Pear-tree, about 5 foot high, and so prickly; only the Leaves are not quite so big, but the Fruit is bigger. On the top of the Fruit there grows a red Flower: This Flow- er, when the Fruit is ripe, falls down on the top of the Fruit, which then begins to open, and covers it so, that no Rain nor Dew can wet the inside. The next day, or 2 days after its falling down, the Flower being then scorched away by the heat of the Sun, the Fruit opens as broad as the mouth of a pint pot, and the inside of the Fruit is by this time full of small red infects, with curious thin wings. As they were bred here, so here they would dye for