CABBAGE-PALM. 175 



getable aliment is most plentiful. The natives and 

 the black slaves then gather together from all parts 

 with large wooden vessels to catch the milk, which as 

 it flows becomes yellow, and thickens on the surface. 

 Some make their abundant meal at the foot of the 

 tree which supplies it ; others carry their full vessels 

 home to their children.'* 



In tropical countries the force of vegetation is so 

 great, and the wants of society so few, that magnifi- 

 cent trees are destroyed for the sake of a small por- 

 tion of food, such as a few square feet of an English 

 garden would produce. 



The CABBAGE-PALM Jlreca oleracea is a most 

 gigantic tree ; its stem, which, near to its base, is 

 about seven feet in circumference, ascends straight 

 and tapering to a vast height. It is of a brown 

 colour, hard, ligneous, divided into short joints, and 

 pithy within like elder. Several feet from the summit, 

 the tree assumes a fluted form, and a green colour ; 

 which change is occasioned by the husky tegument 

 that forms the branches, which thence diverge far in 

 a horizontal direction, like the crown of a pine-apple. 

 These are decorated with numerous pinnated leaves, 

 some of which are about three feet long, and an inch 

 and a half broad, tapering into a sharp point ; the 

 leaves gradually decrease in size as they approach 

 the extremities of the branches. This regular, lofty 

 group of foliage, impelled by the most gentle gale, 

 and constantly waving in feathery elegance, is an 

 object of beauty which cannot be imagined by an in- 

 habitant of temperate climes, unused to the magnifi- 

 cent vegetation of a tropical sun. This seed is in- 

 closed in a brown spatha or sheath, which arises from 

 the centre of the branches, and, hanging downwards, 

 consists of small oval nuts, not unlike a bunch of 



* ' Voyage aux Regions Equinoxiales,' torn, v, p. 264. 



