84 
WONDERS OP THE TROPICAL FORESTS. 
fortunate South Sea Islanders no more trouble than pluck- 
ing and preparing it in the manner above described ; for, 
though the tree which produces it does not grow spontane- 
ously, yetj if a man plants but ten of them in his liletime, 
which he may do in about an hour^ he will^ as Cook 
remarks, " as completely fiiliil his duty to his own and 
future generations, as the native of om* less genial climate 
by ploughing in the cold of winter and reaping in the 
summer's heat as often as the seasons return," 
Dampier (1688) is the first English writer that mentions 
the bread-fruit tree, which he found growing in the 
LadroneSj and a few years later Lord Anson enjoyed its 
fruits at Tinian, wbere they contributed to save the lives of 
his emaciated and scurvy- stricken followers* It continued, 
however, to remain unnoticed in Kuropej until the voyages 
of Wallis and Cook attracted the attention of the whole 
civilised world to the fortnnate islands, whose inhabitants, 
instead of gaining their bread by the sweat of their brow, 
plucked it ready formed from the teeming branches of 
their groves. 
But the wonderful luxuriance of tropical vegetation is 
perhaps nowhere more conapicnous and surprising than in 
the magnificent ilnsacej©, the banana, and the plantain, 
whose fruits most probably nourished mankind long 
before the gifts of Ceres became kaown, A succulent 
shaft or stem, rising to tbe beight of fii^eeu or twenty 
feet, and freriuently two feet in diameter, is formed of the 
sheath-like leaf-stalks rolled one over the other, and ter- 
minating in enormous light-green and glossy blades, ten 
feet long and two feet broad, of so delicate a tissue that 
the slightest wind siiflices to tear them transversely as far 
as the middle rib. A stout foot-stalk arising from the 
centre of the leaves, and reclining over one side of the 
trunk, supports numerous clusters of flowers, and subse- 
quently a great weight of several hundred fruits about 
the size and shape of full-grown cucumbers. On seeing 
the stately plant, one might suppose that many years had 
