THE PINE-APPLE. 263 



of Germany as fit nectar to associate with ambrosial Mar- 

 zipan, is composed of Champagne mingled with other de- 

 licate liquors, and poured upon preserved pine-apple. 



On the other side of the globe the States of America 

 derive their chief supplies of pines from the West India 

 Islands, whence they can be imported at so cheap a rate 

 that they can be bought in New York for 3d. each. In 

 our antipodean colonies home-production has been tried 

 with such good success that in the northern parts of the 

 occupied portion of Queensland pine-apples are grown in 

 the open air for the supply of the Sydney market. 



In a natural state, the Ananas is peculiarly abundant 

 in Sierra Leone, where, battening on moist and decayed 

 vegetable matter, it attains extraordinary size of foliage, 

 destroying every other plant except the timber trees which 

 overshadow it, and forming an almost impenetrable thicket, 

 obstructing the traveller's progress in every direction. 

 Yet the fruit it matures, even in this savage state, is, in 

 a climate so suited to it, equally delicious with that which 

 may have been reared in England at royal cost, under the 

 watchful care of the most scientific gardener. In Suri- 

 nam, says Stedman, Ananas grow spontaneously in such 

 plenty that they are common food for hogs ; a regale suf- 

 ficient, one might imagine, almost to reverse the charm of 

 Circe, and endow these privileged porkers with a super- 

 porcine nature. At Trinidad they are said to attain the 

 largest size, and at Burmah their greatest excellence ; the 

 British army, who found them growing wild in the woods 

 in the latter country, having passed this encomium upon 

 them, but they have never been brought thence to England. 

 That high authority, Humboldt, however, pronounced in 

 favour of quite another locality ; for, after mentioning 

 that there are certain spots in America, as in Europe, 

 where different fruits attain their highest perfection, and 

 indicating what various places are famed for, he proceeds 

 to add decisively, that " the pine-apple should be eaten at 

 Esmeralda [in G-uiana] or in the isle of Cuba," where, 

 growing in parallel rows like agricultural crops, they are 

 " the ornament of the fields." There is hope then* still 

 for the " used up." "When all else hath palled by repeti- 



