8 ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



number of fruits and succulent leaves, and espe- 

 cially roots, are used in times of scarcity. The 

 natives, indeed, know the properties of a long 

 catalogue of plants, some having been found dur- 

 ing famines to be eatable, others injurious to 

 health, or even destructive to life. He met a 

 party of Baquanas, who, having been expelled by 

 the conquering Zulus, had lived for years on any 

 roots or leaves which afforded some little nutri- 

 ment, and distended their stomachs so as to relieve 

 the pangs of hunger. Sir Andrew Smith also 

 informs me that on such occasions the natives 

 observe as a guide for themselves, what the wild 

 animals, especially baboons and monkeys, eat. 



" From innumerable experiments made through 

 dire necessity by the savages of every land, with 

 the results handed down by tradition, the nutri- 

 tious, stimulating, and medicinal properties of the 

 most unpromising plants were probably first dis- 

 covered. It appears, for instance, at first an inex- 

 plicable fact that untutored man, in three distant 

 quarters of the world, should have discovered 

 among a host of native plants that the leaves of 

 the tea-plant and mattee, and the berries of the 

 coffee, all included a stimulating and nutritious 

 essence, now known to be chemically the same. 



