TIIK KlXGDOAr OF UGANDA 



101 



developed into the cultivated liaiiana exaetly like tlii^ nilti\ated lianaiia 

 separately developed in Ivistern Asia ? 



It would, in any case, be ditficult to make a .M Uganda of" to-day 

 believe tliat liis heloved foc»d substance, which jjrovides him with a mass 

 of nourishing \egetable pulp, with a dessert tVuit, with sweet beer and 

 heady s[)irit, with soap, })lates, dishes, najjkins, and materials for foot- 

 britlges,* was not always indigenous to the land he dwells in, and of 

 which it has become the distino-uishinfif feature. 



The banana, as most of my readers are aware, lielongs to an order of 

 monocotyledonous ])lants called the Zingiberacce, to which belong the 

 cannas and the root producing ginger. The flower grows ou a long stalk 



KEEl) FEN(_'ES IN A.\ IGANHA TdWN 



proceeding from the highest part of the plant (the stem of the banana 

 may grow in fertile districts to a height of twenty feet above the ground). 

 The corolla of the flower, with its poorly developed petals, is yellowish 

 white, but it is to a great extent concealed from sight behind a huge 

 spathe of purple. As the flower is fertilised, this spathe draws back arid 

 falls off. There is, however, always a considerable space of bare stalk- 

 between those flowers which have been fertilised, and are ]»roducing fruit, 

 and the end of the stalk, where the last flowers remain in a heart-shaped 

 bulb of purple spathes. A liuncli of bananas with the great purj^le tassel 

 at the end of the stalk Uiakes (piite a beautiful oiiject to paint, from the 

 contrast between the fat, smooth yellow-green fruit above and the purple- 



* In the western parts of the Uganda rrotectorate long jiipe slenis are made out 

 of the stalks of banana leaves. 



