558 



THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



tion is to get tbem as they fall, and the smell is then less overpowering. In a good 

 fruit season large quantities are preserved salted, and kept the year round, when it 

 acquires a most disgusting odor to Eurbpeans, but the natives appreciate it highly as a 

 relish with their rice. It would not, perhaps, be correct to say that the durion is the 

 best of all fruits, because it can not supply the place of the sub-acid juicy kinds, such 

 as the orange, grape, mango, and mangosteen, whose refreshing and cooling qualities 

 are so wholesome and grateful ; but as producing a food of the most exquisite flavor 

 it is unsurpassed. If I had to fix on two only as representing the perfection of the 

 two classes, I should certainly choose the durion and the orange as the king and 

 queen of fruits. 



" The durion is, however, sometimes dangerous. When the fruit begins to ripen it 

 falls daily and almost hourly, and accidents not unfrequently happen to persons walk- 

 ing or working under the trees. When it strikes a man in the fall, it produces a 

 dreadful wound, the strong spines tearing open the flesh, while the blow itself is very 

 heavy. Poets and moralists, judging from the European trees and fruits, have said 

 that small fruits alone grow on lofty trees, so that their fall should be harmless to 

 man, while the larger ones trail on the ground. But this generalization would be 

 much modified by an acquaintance with tropical trees and fruits. Three of the largest, 

 most solid and heavy fruits that exist — the cocoa-nut, the Brazil-nut, and the durion — 

 grow on lofty forest trees, from which they fall as soon as they are ripe, and often 

 wound or kill the inhabitants. From this we may learn, mortifying as it is to our 

 vanity, that trees and fruits, as well as many species of the animal kingdom, do not 

 appear to be organized with exclusive reference to the use and convenience of man." 



When the durion is brought into a house, its odor is so offensive that many persons 

 can not bring themselves to taste it. This was the case with Mr. Wallace for a long 

 time. Try his best to eat it, and the nose put in its absolute veto. But one day he 

 happened when out of doors to find a ripe fruit, and eating it there, he thenceforward 

 became a confirmed durion-eater. 



