246 CERTAIN HERBACEOUS SPECIES. 



the rhizomre of the latter ; Tobacco ; the ox-heart Annona, a plant 

 sometimes cultivated in Europe, where it never fructifies, though its 

 aromatic fruits are its most valuable product, and are highly esteemed 

 by the Africans, these " Custard Apples " resembling thick cream, and 

 being eaten, like cream, with a spoon ; the Banana,* with its gigantic 

 foliage precious " Musa Sapientum " valuable not only to "wise 

 men," but foolish men, as a substitute for wheat or the breadfruit 

 tree, and gratifying the savage with a succulent and nutritious food. 

 Forty or fifty banana plants will flourish in a square space of one 

 thousand feet, and an acre of ground will yield sufficient provision for 

 fifty men. That area of land which, sown with wheat, would feed 

 only one man, will nourish five-and-twenty if planted with bananas. 



I must not forget the Pistachios, ( which flourish spontaneously 

 in the vast plains of Central Africa, and the highly valuable Sugar 

 Cane (Saccharum offitinarum), which, like the Cotton Plant, has 

 rendered inestimable services to man, and yet has been the origin 

 of unutterable crime and misery, promoting by its cultivation the 

 accursed slave-trade. The Vine (Vitis vinifera) is cultivated in a 

 few districts. Among the herbaceous or sub-frutescent plants peculiar 

 to this region, and which enjoy a certain reputation on account of the 

 utility of their products, I may name the following : 



The Calebash Nutmeg (Monodora myristica), one of the Anno- 

 nacese, remarkable for its withered fruits, which, when rasped like 

 its seeds, furnish a condiment deservedly esteemed by the natives ; 

 Guinea Pepper (Uvaria ^Ethiopica), whose properties are well known 

 and appreciated in this part of Western Africa ; and finally, one of 

 the Cucurbitacese, the Telfairia pedata, whose seeds enclose a very 

 oleaginous substance. 



To the east, in Nigritia or the Soudan, the country is nearly level, 

 although situated at an elevation of 1200 to 1300 feet above the sea. 

 The vegetation here is very scanty ; yet the copious tropical rains 

 favour the growth of plants suitable for the provender of cattle ; 

 pastures are abundant, and formed by the principal Grasses (Panicum 

 * Order, Aliisacfx. f Order, Anacardiacex. 



