Return to the River . 
181 
square yards of it giving annually nearly 2,000 kilo¬ 
grammes of food far more nutritious than the potato. 
Here it is the musd sapientum , the banana de Soa 
Thome, which has crossed over to the Brazil, and 
which is there known by its sharper leaves and 
fruit, softer and shorter than the indigenous 
growth. The plant everywhere is most vigorous 
in constant moist heat, the atmosphere of a con¬ 
servatory, and the ground must be low and wet, 
but not swampy. The best way of planting the 
sprouts is so to dispose them that four may form 
the corners of a square measuring twelve feet 
each side; the common style is some five feet 
apart. The raceme, which appears about the 
sixth to the tenth month, will take sixty days 
more to ripen ; good stocks produce three and 
more bunches a year, each weighing from twenty 
to eighty pounds. The stem, after fruiting, should 
be cut down, in order to let the others enjoy light 
and air, and the oftener the plants are removed to 
fresh ground the better. 
The banana, when unripe, is white and insipid; 
it is- then baked under ashes till it takes a golden 
colour, and, like a cereal, it can be eaten as bread. 
A little later it is boiled, and becomes a fair vege¬ 
table, tasting somewhat like chestnuts, and cer¬ 
tainly better than carrots or turnips. Lastly, 
when softer than a pear, it is a fruit eaten with 
milk or made into beignets . I have described the 
