A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL 



I had already made the acquaintance of this lemon in Ceylon, and 

 I found that this fruit alone was worth a voyage to the tropics. For 

 the sake of its scent I used always to pick one and take it to my room. 



Apples of all kinds, and cherries, and strawberries, do well in the 

 highlands, and in the south of Brazil, and in Argentina the cultiva- 

 tion of pears and peaches is rapidly increasing. Jam or marmalade 

 is made of all sorts of fruits, and in Brazil such preserves are a more 

 important article of diet than with us, as cheese is eaten not with 

 bread or bread and butter, but with jam or marmalade. The best 

 preserve for the purpose is guayabada, a guava jam or jelly. The 

 guava is a small pear-shaped fruit with a very delicate, rather 

 musky flavour. 



Very delicious and refreshing is the fruit salad, which consists of 

 a mixture of sliced fruits. The salad is made of whatever fruits 

 happen to be available, but the pineapple is the most important 

 ingredient, as its aroma imparts the most delicate flavour to the 

 whole. The pineapple flourishes best of all in Pernambuco, where 

 it attains an incomparable lusciousness and sweetness. 



A great variety of "lemonades" are prepared from the fruits of 

 Brazil. Of this anyone can convince himself who will pay a visit 

 to the lemonade-seller who has a little stall in the middle of the 

 great Avenida of Rio. My favourite lemonade was perhaps that 

 which is prepared from the passion-fruit or Marocuya. When the 

 round, yellow, hard-skinned fruit is cut it reveals a reddish pulp, 

 so succulent as to be almost liquid, full of little seeds, which are 

 something of a nuisance when one eats it, but which sink to the 

 bottom of the glass. This fruit has a deliciously acid flavour, and 

 a very strong scent, which defies comparison, and clings for a long 

 time to the fingers. It reminds one very vaguely of musk, though 

 I cannot bear the scent of musk, whereas I am very fond of the 

 scent of the passion-flower. 



Of the fruits which are such usual articles of diet that they may 

 almost be regarded as vegetables, the tree-melons are the most 

 important. In Brazil they are known as Mamaos, on account of the 

 milky juice which exudes from the orange-red pulp ; for the Indians, 

 however, they are masculine, being known as Papajas. The tree is 

 more like a tall stake than a tree, for it has no branches, but is 

 crowned by a bush of large, hand-shaped leaves, each on a stalk 

 of its own. Beneath this crown of foliage are large numbers of the 

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