CHAPTER XXVIII 



GENERAL REVIEW OF CULTIVATION continued 



AFRICA 



TROPICAL AFRICA. According to Sir H. Johnston, the 

 plantain is universally cultivated, but bananas are not 

 common, and are of recent introduction, Arab or Portu- 

 guese. He maintains that the plantain was first introduced 

 and cultivated on African soil by the ancient Egyptians, 

 and reached the negro by slow descent from Egypt. 



Speke says that the plantain is the food of the countries 

 one degree on either side of the Equator, acres of ground 

 being covered with its groves. 



Burton, in " Central Africa," states that in the hilly 

 countries around Uganda there are about a dozen varieties. 

 The best fruit is that grown by the Arabs at Unyanyembe ; 

 it is still a poor specimen, coarse and insipid, stringy and 

 full of seeds, and strangers rarely indulge in it. On Lake 

 Tanganyika there is a very large variety called " elephants' 

 hands " ; the skin is of a brick-red, the pulp is yellow, 

 with black seeds, and flavour harsh, strong, and drug-like. 



Schweinfurth (" Heart of Africa "), speaking of the tribe 

 of Monbutto, west of Uganda, says : " The growth of their 

 plantain gives them very little trouble ; the young shoots 

 are stuck in the ground after it has been slackened by the 

 rain ; the old plants are suffered to die down just as they 

 are ; and this is all the cultivation that is vouchsafed. 

 In the propagation of these plantains, however, the Mon- 

 butto have a certain knack of discrimination for which 

 they might be envied by any European gardener ; they 



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