THE BANANA. 367 



the nutritive matter of the banana cannot at all be 

 compared to that of wheat, or even of potatoes. At 

 the same time, a much greater number of individuals 

 may be supported upon the produce of a piece of 

 ground planted with bananas, compared with a piece 

 of the same size in Europe growing wheat. Hum- 

 boldt estimates the proportion as twenty-five to one; 

 and he illustrates the fact by remarking that a Euro- 

 pean, newly arrived in the torrid zone, is struck with 

 nothing so much as the extreme smallness of the 

 spots under cultivation round a cabin which contains 

 a numerous family of Indians. 



The ripe fruit of the banana is preserved, like the 

 fig, by being dried in the sun. This dried banana is 

 an agreeable and healthy aliment. Meal is extracted 

 from the fruit, by cutting it in slices, drying it in the 

 sun, and then pounding it. 



The facility with which the banana can be culti- 

 vated has doubtless contributed to arrest the pro- 

 gress of improvement in tropical regions. In the 

 new continent civilization first commenced on the 

 mountains, in a soil of inferior fertility. Necessity 

 awakens industry, and industry calls forth the intellec- 

 tual powers of the human race. When these are 

 developed, man does not sit in a cabin, gathering the 

 fruits of his little patch of bananas asking no greater 

 luxuries, and proposing no higher ends of life than 

 to eat and to sleep. He subdues to his use all the 

 treasures of the earth by his labour and his skill; 

 and he carries his industry forward to its utmost 

 limits, by the consideration that he has active duties 

 to perform. The idleness of the poor Indian keeps 

 him, where he has been for ages, little elevated above 

 the inferior animal; the industry of the European, 

 under his colder skies, and with a less fertile soil, 

 has surrounded him with all the blessings of society 



