226 



TROPICAL FRUITS. 



when weighed with those which make the warlike dweller in 

 forests unconquerable, by men who have not his training. 

 A hardy soldier accustomed only to war in the open, will 

 become a good cragsman in fewer weeks than it will take 

 him years to learn to be so much as a fair woodsman, for 

 it is beyond all comparison more difficult to attain proficiency 

 in woodcraft, than in mountaineering." * 



Before closing this section, we think it desirable to 

 add a few words upon the subject of tropical fruits, 

 and upon one or two of the other rarer and more valu- 

 able treasures of the great forest region. The number 

 of different kinds of fruit peculiar to the tropics is, 

 however, very large, and it would of course be impos- 

 sible to attempt anything like a detailed statement 

 respecting them. 



Moreover, the flavour of many of these fruits 

 is not much esteemed by European palates ; it is 

 alleged that they are mostly too sweet and luscious 

 and too highly scented, or else have a rough and un- 

 pleasantly tart or astringent taste. There can be no 

 doubt that there is a good deal of truth in these 

 assertions, and that in general popularity and exquisite 

 flavour, they can hardly be said to come up to the 

 best fruits of the temperate zones ; thus in the tropics, 

 they have probably no fruit to match a really first-rate 

 peach, f nor any that will bear comparison with the 

 strawberry, or perhaps with a first-rate pear, nor yet 

 with the orange. Both the peach and the orange, 

 however, have been grown in certain tropical stations, 

 and the latter will often bear remarkably well, yet the 



* The Winning of the West, by Theodore Roosevelt, 1889, Vol. i., 

 P- 79- 



t The peach is indigenous to Persia, and is strictly speaking a habitant 

 of the desert zone. 



