must have instructed the natives in it. This period
corresponds with that in which the use of the
plant was making rapid progress in the northern
countries of Europe, being but fifteen years later
than that of its introduction into our own. Some
have suspected, that the plant was known tp the
natives before their connection with Europeans,
and that they even used it medicinally.* Thé traditions
of tfte natives are what are resorted to as
proof y but the evidence which depends on their
lubricious memories cannot weigh against the unvarying
testimony of language. *
Of the principal Fruits and Flowers usedfor
economical purposes by the Indian islanders, I am
now to render a very succinct account. Of the
fruits, by far the most important is the Bananat
Indian fig or plantain, (Musa Paradisical) It is
the principal fruit consumed by the Indian island?
ers, apd from its nutritions quality and general
use, may, whether used in a raw or dressed form,
be regarded rather as an article of subsistence than
* “ A senioribus intellexi Javanis, qui illud a parentibus
iterum audiverarit, tabaci plántam in Java fuiSse notám, an-
teqüám ibi fiiérunt Portogalli, h. e. ante annum Chtisli l 496,
neiítiqúam vero ad Suctionem, sed tantuiümodo ad usum itìe-
dicum, unanimo enim consensu Indi adsentiunt sese tabaci
suctionem ab Europaús didicissé.”— Rumphii Herbé Arriba
Tom. V. p. 225. The opinion in the text will be found a
material correction of that expressed in p. 104 of this volunté.
of occasional luxury. It is given in large quantities,
even to infants at the breast. It no where,
however, in the Indian islands is an article of subsistence
of the first importance, as in the tropical
regions of America. Rice, maize, farinaceous
roots, and the farina of the pith of palms, always
supersede the necessity of recurring to the use of
the banana, an inferior species o f. aliment. * I
think this important fact may be considered as
conclusive in favour of the superior physical capacity
of the soil of these islands over that of tropical
America, if, indeed, the difference, which,is not,
however, probable, may not have arisen from accidental
causes having given to human industry a mo^e
beneficial direction in the former than, id the lat*
* “ The banana,” says the Earon Humboldt,-u is for all
the inhabitants of the torrid zone what ' the cereal gramina,
wheat, barley, and rye; are for the western Asia, and for Europe,
and what the numerous varieties of rice are for the
countries beyond the Indus, especially for Benga) and CJiina.
In the two continents, in the islands through the immense extent
of the équinoxial seas, wherever the mean heat of the
year exceeds 24 centigrade degrees, the fruit of the banana
is one of the most interesting objects of cultivation for the
subsistence of man.” This observation is extremely inaccurate,
and very unlike M. Humboldt., who, to, borrow an expression
of Mr Gibbon, is seldom a stranger in any age or
country. The banana no where in équinoxial Asia, either
continental or insular, .supersedes or even competes with
the cerealia.