But they want bread the rest of the year too. So they take advantage of the time when the fruit is most abundant, and, from that which they do not want for immediate use, they prepare a paste that can be kept a long time without turning sour. And, during the four months the tree is without ripe fruit, they live upon this preparation.
Tapioca is the singular production of a vegetable root. It is singular because, though wholesome and nutritious as food, it is produced from a strong poison. It is prepared as follows by native women.
Roots of the manioc plant are gathered, and bruised into pulp with a wooden pestle. This pulp is wrapped in a net made of lily leaves. This is stuck upon a fork, and a heavy weight tied to the bottom of the net so as to press it tightly to squeeze out the manioc juice. A calabash receives the juice, which is very poisonous. Arrows and spear heads are dipped into it to make them certainly fatal. While this is going on the liquid is all the time depositing a white, starch-like substance in the bottom of the calabash. When all of this that the poisonous liquid contains is deposited, the juice is poured off, and the white substance is passed through clear water, and becomes tapioca.
A FOREST OF MANGROVES.
When we are in the tropics we must not forget to visit the Mangroves. These trees grow thickly together in the ocean mud near the shore, and are very queer specimens of the vegetable world. To look at them from a little distance you would hardly know whether they were trees, or fishes, or sea-serpents. Their upper branches and trunks are like the first, their lower branches covered with oysters and other shell-fish appear like the second; and their long curiously twisted roots, standing partly out of the water, seem like the third. Sometimes, in passing over wet and swampy places, men walk on these roots. In such a case, a naked savage gets along much more easily than an European, with his boots and clothes, and perhaps a heavy gun.
But there is a strange thing about this tree, apart from its uncommon growth. And that is the way that its seeds germinate. We put a seed into the ground, and when it sends up its little stalk and leaves we say it has germinated or sprouted. Now the mangrove seeds germinate on the branches, in the fruit. The seed sends forth the little stalk which grows up there until it is a foot long. This stalk is shaped like a pointed club and is quite heavy. When it is ready to fall, it goes plump down through the leaves and branches of the tree, sharp end downwards, and sticks itself firmly upright in the mud at the bottom of the water. And, after some time, it thrusts itself above the surface, and grows into a comical mangrove tree.
If you will study the marvels of vegetable life you will find strange things of which I have said nothing.
Many wonderful plants grow high up in the air on the branches of trees; and many very curious ones thrive only in the water.