192 ON THE MILK-SAP 



Though the sap of Siphonia is at least harmless, though 

 the juice of the Tabayba dolce (Euphorbia balsamifera, 

 Ait.) is even similar to sweet milk and, thickened into a 

 jelly, eaten as a delicacy by the inhabitants of the Canary 

 Islands, as Leopold von Buch relates in his interesting 

 description of the Canaries ; yet most of the plants of this 

 group are to be counted among the suspicious, or even most 

 actively poisonous, on account of this very juice. And 

 yet, strangely enough, they also furnish a most wholesome 

 food, which we have scarcely anything to compare with. 

 Throughout all the hotter part of America, the culture 

 the Mandioc-root (Jatropha Manihot) is one of the most 

 important branches of husbandry. The native savages 

 and the Europeans, the black slave and free man of colour, 

 alike substitute for our white bread and rice, the Tapiocca 

 and the Mandiocca farinha, or Cassava-meal, and the 

 cakes prepared from it (pan de tierra caliente of the 

 Mexicans) ; which are obtained from that most poisonous 

 plant. The sweet Yucca (Yuca duke), which is the name 

 applied there to the Mandioc plant, must be distinguished 

 from the sour or bitter kind (Yuca amara). The former, 

 which is therefore cultivated with great care, may be eaten 

 at once, without danger ; while the latter, eaten fresh, is an 

 active poison. They serve the uncivilized son of the 

 South American tropics for food, and we will watch him 

 for a moment in his haunt. In a dense forest of Guiana, 

 the Indian chief has stretched his sloping mat between 

 two high stems of the Magnolia, he rests indolently 

 smoking beneath the shade of the broad-leaved Banana, 

 gazing at the doings of his family around. His wife 

 pounds the gathered Mandioc-roots with a wooden club, in 

 the hollowed trunk of a tree, and wraps the thick pulp in 

 a compact net made from the tough leaves of the great 



