162 NEW AND RARE PLANTS. 



are followed by a profuse flow of gluey and tliickish milk, destitute of acri- 

 dity, aud exhaling a very agreeable balsamic odour. It was offered to us in> 

 calabashes, and though we drank large quanties of it, both at night and be- 

 fore going to bed and again early in the morning, we experienced no un- 

 comfortable effects. The viscidity of this milk alone renders it rather un- 

 pleasant to those who are unaccustomed to it. 



'' The negroes and free people, who work in the plantations, use it, by 

 soaking bread in it made from maize, maniac, aropa, andfcassava ; and the 

 superiutendant of the farm assured us, that the slaves become visibly fatter 

 during the season when the Palo de Vaca yields most milk. When exposed 

 to the air, this fluid displays on its surface, probably by the absorption of 

 the atmospheric oxygen, membranes of a highly animal nature, yellowish 

 and thready like those of cheese ; which, when separated from the more 

 watery liquid, are nearly as elastic as those of caoutchouc, but in process 

 ot time exhibit the same tendency to putrefaction as gelatine. The people 

 give the name of cheese to the curd which thus separates when brought 

 into contact with the air, and say that a space of five or six days suffices to 

 turn it sour, as 1 found to be the case in some small quantities that I brought 

 to New \'alencia. The milk itself kept in a corked bottle, had deposited a 

 small portion of coagulum, and far from becoming fetid, continued to ex- 

 hale a balsamic scent. When mingled with cold water, the fleshy fluid co- 

 agulated with difficulty ; but contact with nitric acid produced the separa- 

 tion of the viscous membranes, 



" I own that among the great number of curious phenomena which ofter- 

 ed themselves to my notice daring my travels, there was hardly one which 

 struck ray imagination so strongly as the sight of the Cow Tree. Every 

 thing which relates to milk — all which regards the Cerealia, inspires us 

 with interest, which relates not solely to the physical knowledge of things 

 but seems to be allied to another order of ideas and feelings. We can 

 hardly Suppose that the human race could exist extensively without some 

 laniareoiis substances, any more than the protracted weakness of the hu- 

 man nursling can be supported without the nutritive fluid of its mother's 

 breast; and to this conviction is attributable the religious kind of reverence 

 with which the amylaceous matter of the Cerealia has been regarded by 

 people both in ancieDt and modern times, as also the feelings with which we 

 gazed upon the stately tree that I have now described. Neither the noble 

 shadowy forests, nor the majestic current of rivers, nor the mountains hoary 

 with seiupiterernal snows. — none of these wonders ot tropical regions, so 

 rivetted mv gaze as did this tree, growing on the sides of rocks, its thick 

 routs scarcely penetrating the stony soil and unmoistened during many 

 months of the year by a drop of dew or rain. But dry and dead as (he 

 blanches appear, if you pierce the trunk, a sweet and nutritive milk flows 

 forth, which is in greatest profusion at day-break. At this time, the blacks 

 and other natives of the neighbourhood hasten from all quarters, furnished 

 with large jugs to catch the milk, which thickens and turns yellow on the 

 surface. Some drink it on the spot, others carry it home to their children ; 

 and you might fancy you saw the family of a cow-herd gathering around him 

 and receiving from him the produce of his '* kine." 

 Incited by this interesting narrative, by the chemical. 

 Sir Robert Ker Porter's drawing was acompanied by well dried specimens 

 of the foliage, and by the following interesting particulars in a letter, dated 

 Caraccas, Juue8, 1837. " I had the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt 

 of your letter of August (1836) on the 16th of the following November ; but 

 from great occupation in my official business, I had not a single day to spare 

 that might enable me to satisfy yourself, and two or three other lovers of 

 botany, relative to the Milk Tree. I have, however, made an excursion into 

 the mountains, some fifty miles distant from this city.( about three leagues 

 from the coast, ( not far from the town of Coriacco, and after extreme pedes- 

 trian labour up the steep forest-covered face of the mountain, reached the 

 spot where the Palo de Vaca grows. I assure you that the sight of this 



