212 BOTANICAL INFORMATION. 



general opinion indeed is that both are naturally produced in every part 

 of Abyssinia, provided there is heat and moisture. It grows and comes 

 to great perfection at Gondar, but it most abounds in that part of 

 Maitsha and Goutto west of the Nile, where there are large plantations 

 of it, and is there, almost to the exclusion of anything else, the food 

 of the Galla inhabiting that province. Maitsha is nearly upon a dead 

 level, and the rains have not slope to get off easily, but stagnate, and 

 ' prevent the sowing of grain. Vegetable food would therefore be very 

 scarce in Maitsha were it not for this plant." 



We have already said that the fruit of the Ensete is not eatable ; 

 the one to three large seeds occupy almost the entire fruit, and by 

 their size give the unequal form to the exterior of it. But the stem 

 or trunk, as soon as it has attained its full size, before it becomes hard 

 and fibrous, is eatable, and excellent, and when boiled it has the taste 

 of the best new wheat-bread not perfectly baked, "When you make 

 use of the Ensete for eatiu"^, you cut it immediately above the root, 

 and perhaps a foot or two higher as the plant advances in age. You 

 strip the green from the outer part till it becomes white ; when soft, 

 like a turnip well boiled, if eat with milk or butter, it is the best of 

 all food, wholesome, nourishing, and easily digested." 



" We see," says Bruce, " in some of the Egyptian antique statues 

 the figure of Isis sitting between the branches (foliage ?) of the Banana- 

 tree, as it is supposed, and some handfuls of ears of wheat ; you see 

 likewise the hippopotamus ravaging a quantity of Banana-trees. But 

 the (true) Banana is not a plant of the country, and could never have 

 entered into the list of their hieroglyphics ; for this reason it could not 

 figure anything permanent or regular in the history of Egypt or its 

 climate. I therefore imagine that this hieroglyphic was wholly Ethio- 

 pian, and that the supposed Banana, which, as an adventitious plant, 

 signifies notliing in Egypt, was only a representation of the Ensete, 

 and that the record in the hieroglyphic of Isis and the Ensele-tvee was 

 something that happened between harvest and the time the Ensete-treG 

 came to be in use, which is in October. The hippopotamus is generally 

 thought to represent the Nile, that has been so abundant as to be de- 

 structive. When therefore we see upon the obelisks the hippopotamus 

 destroying the Banana, we may suppose it meant that the extraordinary 

 inundation had gone so far as not only to destroy the wheat, but also 

 to retard or hurt the growth of the East^fe, which was to supply its 



