310 Amboyna. 



I have never met with either before or since — the true bread- 

 fruit. A good deal of it has been planted about here and in 

 the surrounding villages, and almost every day we had op- 

 portunities of purchasing some, as all the boats going to Am- 

 boyna were unloaded just opposite my door to be dragged 

 across the isthmus. Though it grows in several other parts 

 of the Archipelago, it is nowhere abundant, and the season 

 for it only lasts a short time. It is baked entire in the hot 

 embers, and the inside scooped out with a spoon. I compared 

 it to Yorkshire pudding ; Charles Allen said it was like mashed 

 potatoes and milk. It is generally about the size of a melon, 

 a little fibrous toward the centre, but everywhere else quite 

 smooth and puddingy, something in consistence between 

 yeast-dumplings and batter-pudding. We sometimes made 

 curry or stew of it or fried it in slices ; but it is no way so 

 good as simply baked. It may be eaten sweet or savory. 

 With meat and gravy, it is a vegetable superior to any I 

 know, either in temperate or tropical countries. With sugar, 

 milk, butter, or treacle, it is a delicious pudding, having a 

 very slight and delicate but characteristic flavor, which, like 

 that of good bread and potatoes, one never gets tired of. 

 The reason why it is comparatively scarce is, that it is a 

 fruit of which the seeds are entirely aborted by cultivation, 

 and the tree can therefore only be propagated by cuttings. 

 The seed-bearing variety is common all over the tropics, and 

 though the seeds are very good eating, resembling chestnuts, 

 the fruit is quite worthless as a vegetable. Now that steam 

 and Ward's cases render the transport of young plants so 

 easy, it is much to be wished that the best varieties of this 

 unequalled vegetable should be introduced into our West 

 India Islands, and largely propagated there. As the fruit 

 will keep some time after being gathered, we might then 

 be able to obtain this tropical luxury in Covent Garden 

 Market. 



Although the few months I at various times spent in Am- 

 boyna were not altogether very profitable to me in the way 

 of collections, yet it will always remain as a bright spot in the 

 review of my Eastern travels, since it was there that I first 

 made the acquaintance of those glorious birds and insects, 

 which render the Moluccas classic ground in the eyes of the 



