52 The Humming Bird. 



In all these lands the plants grow with great ease, in spite 

 of the fact that they receive the least amount of care. To set 

 out a new plantation is the simplest of operations. The stems 

 formed by the base of the leaves, are annual, and usually die 

 down after the exhaustive process of fruiting has been com- 

 pleted, new ones being produced from buds or suckers in the 

 root stock, which is perennial. It is by planting these buds 

 that the banana is propagated, and fresh plantations made. 

 And so exceedingly simple is this form of agriculture, that the 

 plant generally bears ripe fruit within ten months of the offsets 

 being put into the ground. As is the case with many other 

 useful plants, it is now difficult to trace the original country 

 of the banana. Botanical geography, however, forbids the 

 acceptance of the belief that bananas where the fruits called 

 "grapes" which the spies of Moses brought from the valley 

 of Eschol, and it is about as unlikely to have been the " for- 

 bidden fruit" as the Seychelles cocoa-nut was, according to 

 the belief of General Gordon. It is supposed to be a native 

 of India, and in that Empire it still forms a large part of the 

 people's food in the area where it grows best, and bunches of 

 it figure at weddings as symbols of plenty. But it is doubtful 

 whether it was introduced into Africa from any part of Asia. 

 We know that it is not indigenous to Egypt. Nevertheless, on 

 some ancient Egyptian sculptures we see representations 

 of Isis with ears of corn and the foliage of the plant in question, 

 and carvings have been met with which represent the hippo- 

 potamus destroying the banana. This species Bruce took to 

 be the Abyssinian one, the hippopotamus typifying the Nile, 

 the inundations of which have at times washed away not only 

 the wheat, but also the " Ensete " banana, the nutritous stems 

 of which were to supply its place. It is also the recorded 

 opinion of Emin Pacha that all the varieties of Central Africa 

 bananas are cultivated forms of the inedible Abyssinian species, 

 which have gradually spread southward, or have been carried 

 by the Gallas or other northern tribes on the invading expedi- 

 tions which have given Wahumu Kings to so many of the 

 countries in the vicinity of the Great Lakes. Be this as it may 

 ■ — and the cattle and fowls which are found in every African 

 village are equal mysteries — it is certain that from a time 

 beyond which the memory of man runneth not the banana has 

 been the fruit of a large portion of Africa just as it is of a 

 large area of South America, and bids fair to become the staple 

 produce of the hotter parts of the United States. 



