$6 WONDERS OF THE TROPICAL FORESTS, 
cereals ; but while tlie monotonona fields of the latter add 
but little to the beftttty of the northern regions, the 
tropical husbandman multiplies in the banana one of the 
noblest forms of vegetable liie." 
The Masaceiii are not only useful to man by their 
mealy, wholesomej aud agreeable fruits, but also by the 
fibres of their long leaf-stalks. Some species furnish 
filaments. for the finest muslin, and the coarse fibres of 
the Mum texliHsj known in trade under the name of 
Manilla hemp, serve for the preparation of very durable 
cordage. 
To the same family of plants bclon.jrs also the tra- 
veller tree of Madagascar, one of those wouderful sources 
of refreshment which Natm'e has provided for the thirsty 
wanderer in the wilderness. The foot-stalks of the ellip- 
tical, alternate leaves embrace the tmnk with broad 
sheathes, in which the dew trickling from their surface 
is collected. Thus the ravenala, the hollo^v baobab, the 
pitcher-phmt, and the juicy cactuses, all answer a similar 
purpose, and it is impossible to say which of them is most 
to be admired- 
Life and death are strangely blended in the Cassava or 
Mandioca root; the juice a rapidly destructive poison, 
the meal a nutritious and agreeable food, which, in 
tropical America, and chiefly in Brazil, forms a great 
part of the people's sustenanca The height to which 
the cassava attains varies from four to six feet : it rises 
by a slender, woody, knotted stalk, famished with alter- 
nate pal mated leaves, and springs from a woody root, the 
slender collateral fibres of which swell into those farina- 
ceous parsnip-like masses, for which alone the plant is 
cultivated. It requn-es a dry soil, and is not found at a 
greater elevation than 2000 feet above the level of the sea. 
It is propagated by cuttings, which very qnickly take 
root, and in about eight months from the time of their 
being planted, the tubers will generally be in a tit state 
to be collected ; thoy may, however, be left in the ground 
