552 



THE TROPICAL WORLD. 



growth ; and yet only eight or ten months were necessary for its full development. 

 Each shaft produces its fruit but once, when it withers and dies ; but new shoots 

 spring forth from the root, and before the year has elapsed unfold themselves with the 

 same luxuriance. Thus, without any other labor than now and then weeding the 

 field, fruit follows upon fruit and harvest upon harvest. A single bunch of bananas 

 often weighs from sixty to seventy pounds, and Humboldt has calculated that thirty- 

 three pounds of wheat and ninety-nine pounds of potatoes require the same space of 

 ground to grow upon as will produce 4,000 pounds of bananas. 



This prodigality of nature, seemingly so favorable to the human race, is, however, 

 attended with great disadvantages ; for where the life of man is rendered too easy, his 

 best powers remain dormant, and he almost sinks to the level of the plant which 

 affords him subsistence without labor. Exertion awakens our faculties as it increases 

 our enjoyments, and well may we rejoice that wheat and maize, and not the banana, 

 ripen in our fields. 



As the seeds of the cultivated plantain and banana never, or very rarely, ripen, 

 they can only be propagated by suckers. "In both hemispheres," says Humboldt, 

 " as far as tradition or history reaches, we find plantains cultivated in the tropical 

 zone. It is as certain that African slaves have introduced, in the course of centuries, 

 varieties of the banana iuto America, as that before the discovery of Columbus the 

 pisang was cultivated by the aboriginal Indians." 



MANUFACTURE OF SAGO. 



The Sago-Palm may fairly dispute with the plantain the honor of producing upon a 

 given space the greatest amount of human food. It grows all over the islands of the 

 Malayan Archipelago, the most productive district being in Coram, whence large 

 quantities are exported. The tree, says Mr. Wallace,"* is a palm thicker and larger 

 than the cocoa-nut tree, although rarely so tall, and having immense pinnate spiny 

 leaves, which completely cover the trunk until it is several years old. When it is 



* Malayan Archipelago, 382-385. 



