THE MAGDALENA MIVER. 



75 



for food. One bunch, which can be bought along the river for a 

 real, will keep a man in food for ten days. The plantains are eaten 

 green or ripe, boiled, baked, fried, or raw, and are a fair substitute 

 for potatoes and bread. As soon as the bunch of fruit is cut off, 

 the plant is cut down close to the ground, and it immediately puts 

 up fresh shoots which bear again in six months, and so on. The 

 natives call plantains " platanos," and bananas they call " platani- 

 tos," little plantains. The bananas that we got in Colombia were 



^ - ^ ^ 



A BONGO OR CHAMPAN ON THE MAGDALENA. 



(By permission of Bureau of American Republics.) 



among the most delicious of fruits. They were small, with a skin 

 as thin as a kid glove, and of an exquisitely delicate flavor, incom- 

 parably superior to those that we have. These will not bear 

 transportation. From seeing the bunches before our fruit stores, I 

 had always thought that bananas grew pendent on the bunch, but 

 they grow with their free ends pointing up. The natives raise a 

 little corn, but there is no systematic method of planting or cultivat- 

 ing it. The difference in cultivation is shown by the ears, on which 

 the grains are irregularly distributed, and not in long parallel 

 rows as in our corn. As there are no mills, they grind the little 



