THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 373 



crammed with it. We observe it in all the organs — root, 

 stem, and flower. 



We are astonished when sailors tell us that the islanders 

 of Otaheite actually prepare bread, by simply placing upon 

 a gridiron slices of a large fruit which grows in their island, 

 and that these, when they are taken from the gridiron, 

 have precisely the taste of the bread made by our bakers. 

 This is easily explained. The fruit of the bread-fruit tree, 

 for it is so called, which reaches an enormous size, gener- 

 ally weighing more than a kilogramme (about two joounds 

 three ounces avoirdripois), and sometimes four or five, is 

 crammed with fecula, and owing to this only requires to 

 be sliced and exposed to heat in order to be transformed 

 into genuine warm bread. 



Strabo relates, that when the army of Alexander was 

 traversing Gedrosia, the men, being utterly without food, 

 supported themselves for some time on the pith of a certain 



200. Cellular Tissue filled with Fecula, seen with the Mior 



oscope. 



species of palm. The same thing happened, according 

 to the account given by Xenophon, during the famous re- 

 treat of the ten thousand Greeks. All this is also naturally 



