WHERE OUR BANANAS COME FROM 



713 



burial service in the Indian language. 

 The body was laid away in a grave on 

 the bluff overlooking the river, while the 

 whole population of the island joined in 

 the singing of a weird interpretation of 

 "Nearer, My God, to Thee." 



The Indians of this country are nomi- 

 nally all Christians, and are visited every 

 year by Bishop Stringer, of the diocese 

 of the Yukon. Many are communicants 

 of the Church of England. They are 

 also communicants of any other church 

 with which they may have come in con- 

 tact. They also hold fast to many of 

 their old customs, and in consequence we 



shall probably have to pay for the one 

 person who died, or take the chance of 

 a shot from ambush. 



With it all there is an unexplainable 

 fascination about the North. The very 

 hardships lend a paradoxical charm. The 

 vast solitudes, uninhabited and lonely, 

 have an irresistible call. The surveyor 

 dreads the day when he shall have thrown 

 his last diamond hitch, broken his last 

 camp, and, from the deck of a home- 

 ward-bound steamer, have watched a 

 free life fade away in the mist with the 

 distant hills. 



WHERE OUR BANANAS COME FROM 



By Edwin R. Fraser 



THERE exists a legend relative to 

 the Christian inhabitants of the 

 East, that they believed the ba- 

 nana to be the tree of the source of good 

 and evil, in a bunch of whose fruit the 

 serpent that tempted Eve hid itself, and 

 they add that when Adam and Eve be- 

 came ashamed of their nakedness they 

 covered themselves with the leaves of 

 this plant. Beyond all doubt this legend 

 had some influence upon the minds of 

 those early botanical classifiers who 

 designated two species of the plant by 

 the names of Musa paridisiaca and Musa 

 sapientmm — Fruit of Paradise, Fruit of 

 Knowledge. 



The origin of the banana is given as 

 India, at the foot of the Himalayas, 

 where it has been cultivated since re- 

 motest antiquity. Its origin in the New 

 World is as doubtful as the origin of the 

 American Indian. Natural to Asia and 

 Africa, where more than 20 distinct spe- 

 cies of the genus are known, it is said to 

 have been brought first to America from 

 Spain, early in the sixteenth century, and 

 planted in the island of San Domingo, 

 whence its spread was rapid throughout 

 the surrounding islands and the main- 

 land. This has never been authentically 

 established, however, and some authori- 

 ties include the banana among the articles 

 that formed the base of the food supply 

 of the Incas and the Aztecs before the 



arrival of the Spaniards. Certain it is 

 that throughout the whole of meridional 

 America there is a strong tradition that 

 at least two species of the plantain were 

 cultivated long before the coming of the 

 Europeans. Furthermore, it is singular 

 that in all the languages indigenous to the 

 region where the banana appears, that 

 plant has a special name, not proceeding 

 from the conquerors, as was the case 

 with the names of many other plants, 

 animals, and various articles introduced 

 into America after its discovery. 



Grown over the entire extent of the 

 meridian of the earth, the fruit of the 

 banana today forms, in large part, the 

 principal food of a majority of the peo- 

 ples living under the tropical zone. 

 Several species and numerous varieties 

 of the plant appear throughout tropical 

 America, but it is cultivated for commer- 

 cial purposes in appreciable quantities 

 only along the Atlantic border, from 

 southern Mexico to Colombia, in Ja- 

 maica, Cuba, San Domingo, and the Ba- 

 hamas, the far western markets of the 

 United States being supplied from the 

 Flawaiian Islands and Mexico's south 

 Pacific coast. 



The lowlands adjacent to Costa Rica's 

 eastern coast present a combination of 

 soil and climate that is perfectly adapted 

 to the cultivation of this plant. It thrives 

 best under conditions of extreme heat 



