58 



" The plantain is roasted green when it becomes quite dry and a good 

 substitute for bread ; or boiled, to eat with meat instead of potatoes ; 

 and when ripe roasted whole or cut lengthways into thin slices and fried 

 in butter and eaten with a little sugar and cinnamon or wine forming a 

 delicious dish for dessert. A very large plantain, 18 or 20 inches long, 

 is cultivated in the interior, and is brought down to the coast by the 

 Tombos." 



Speke, in his Nile Journal, p. 648, enumerates the uses of plantains 

 in Central Africa : "A chip from the stem washes the hands, and makes 

 the wet flesh-rubber of the Waganda ; thread and lashings for loads 

 are also taken from the stem ; rain is collected in the green leaves, 

 which can be made into an ingenious temporary pipe ; the dry leaves 

 make screen-fences and sacks to hold grain or provisions ; the fruit 

 dried (from Ugigi) is like a Normandy pippin ; a variety, when green 

 and boiled, is an excellent vegetable, while another yields a wine 

 resembling hock in flavour. At 2° N. they cease to be grown." 



In Fiji " The fruit of the different Musas is," according to Seemann, 

 <k variously prepared by the native cooks. Split in half, and filled with 

 grated cocoa-nut and sugar cane, bananas make a favourite pudding 

 (vakalolo), which, on account of its goodness and rich sauce of cocoa- 

 nut milk, has found its way even into the kitchen of the white 

 settlers. Wilkes has already mentioned that the natives, instead of 

 hanging up the fruit until it becomes mellow, bury it (occasionally, it 

 should be added) in the ground, which causes it to appear black on 

 the outside, and impairs the flavour. The fresh Musa leaves are used 

 as substitutes for plates and dishes in serving food or for making 

 temporary clothing, the dry instead of paper for cigarettes (suluka). 

 In place of the finger-glasses handed round at our tables after dinner, 

 Fijians of rank are supplied with portions of the leaf-stalk of the 

 plantain." 



Seemann continues : "The Fei, or mountain plantain, beaten into a 

 pulp and diluted with cocoa-nut milk or water till brought to the 

 consistency of arrowroot as ordinarily prepared in England, was 

 formerly much used in the Society Islands. Large quantities were 

 usually prepared for every festival ; a kind of cistern was made, with 

 a framework of wood and a lining of leaves, which, when filled was a 

 sufficient load for six men to carry. Seven or eight of these were 

 sometimes filled and carried on men's shoulders to one feast." 



Moseley in " Notes of a Naturalist," confirms this interesting account 

 of the Fei. In Tahiti he and his companions made " the first camp in 

 the head of Fatua Valley at a height of about 1,600 feet amongst the 

 ' Fei ' or wild plantains .... The plant is closely similar in 

 appearance to an ordinary banana tree, but the large bunches of 

 fruit instead of hanging dowm stand up erect from the summit of the 

 stem. They are bright yellow when ripe. 



" A fire is lighted and a bunch of these wild bananas is thrown into 

 it. The outer skin of the fruit becomes blackened and charred, but 

 when it is peeled off with a pointed stick a yellow floury interior is 

 reached, which is most excellent eating and like a mealy potato. This 

 is one of the very few plants which, growing spontaneously and in 

 abundance, affords a really good and sufficient source of food to man. 

 Hardly any improvement could be wished for in the fruits by cultiva- 

 tion* It could not but be most advantageous that the plant should be 

 introduced into many other tropical countries." 



In the West Indies the dried leaves and prepared portions of the stem 

 are used as a packing material for the fruit when taken down to the 



