A fruit that always appealed to us was the papaya, or pawpaw. It grows in clusters on a tree about twenty feet high. In taste and appearance it closely resembles a good-sized muskmelon. It is surprising to see such large fruits growing on so small a tree. It flowers and fruits at the same time.
The fruits, however, that are the mainstay for the greatest number of people in the tropics, are, as has already been stated, the banana and the plantain. The former is known to botanists as Musa sapientum, because sages have reposed beneath its shade and eaten its fruit. The latter is called Musa paradisiaca, on account of a certain tradition that it was the forbidden fruit in Paradise.[10] Both the banana and the plantain number almost as many varieties as the apple. The bananas are smaller than the plantains. The former range from one to six inches in length, while some varieties of the latter attain a length of fifteen inches. They are eaten raw, boiled and roasted and as preserves. A few trees will supply a whole family with the means of subsistence during the entire year.
The banana and plantain are just the kinds of plants that specially appeal to the natives of the equatorial regions, for they give at all seasons a never-failing abundance of nutritious food, and that, too, without any more labor and care than are entailed by clearing the ground and placing them in the ever-productive soil.[11] Sir Charles Dilke, however, regards these food producers in quite a different light. In his estimation, the banana is the curse of the tropics. Their very abundance, and the little care they require, constitute, according to him, a bar to progress and to civilization of the highest kind in the tropics, for the reason that all true civilization necessarily presupposes labor and effort. It is for this reason that the highest faculties of man are most conspicuous in the temperate zone, where there is a constant struggle for existence.
Before leaving Barranquilla we met a gentleman who had just completed a tour of all Latin America and he declared that San José was the most beautiful city he had seen in all his travels.
At the time we gave little credence to what seemed a very exaggerated impression, but after we were able to judge for ourselves, we were forced to admit that Costa Rica’s fair capital is, indeed, a most delightful place.
In a charming, secluded vale near the city, where stood the country seat of a wealthy merchant of the capital, was a particularly romantic spot. The only places I could recall that could fairly compare with it were certain upland valleys in the larger islands of the equatorial Pacific. Hidden away in the luxuriant tropical forest, alongside a broad mountain torrent, where fruit and flower and foliage vied with one another in delicacy of fragrance and richness of hue, it required but little strain of fancy to imagine that we were gazing upon the wonders of the enchanted isle of Armida and Rinaldo; for here,
“Mild was the air, the skies were clear as glass,
The trees no whirlwind felt nor tempest’s smart,
But ere the fruit drop off, the blossom comes;
This springs that falls, that ripeneth and thus blooms.”[12]