Chapter Fifty Three.
A Vegetable Cow.
The tree which had thus determined them to discontinue their journey, and which was to furnish them with lodgings for the night, was the famous palo de vaca, or “cow-tree” of South America, known also as the arbol de leche, or “milk-tree.” It has been described by Humboldt under the name Galactodendron, but later botanical writers, not contented with the very appropriate title given to it by the great student of Nature, have styled it Brosium. It belongs to the natural order of the Atrocarpads, which, by what might appear a curious coincidence, includes also the celebrated breadfruit. What may seem stranger still, the equally famous upas-tree of Java is a scion of the same stock, an atrocarpad! Therefore, just as in one family there are good boys and bad boys, (it is to be hoped there are none of the latter in yours,) so in the family of the atrocarpads there are trees producing food and drink both wholesome to the body and delicious to the palate, while there are others in whose sap, flowers, and fruit are concealed the most virulent of poisons.
The massaranduba is not the only species known as palo de vaca, or cow-tree. There are many others so called, whose sap is of a milky nature. Some yield a milk that is pleasant to the taste and highly nutritious, of which the “hya-hya” (Tabernaemontana utibis), another South American tree, is the most conspicuous. This last belongs to the order of the Apocyanae, or dog-banes, while still another order, the Sapotacae, includes among its genera several species of cow-tree. The massaranduba itself was formerly classed among the Sapotads.
It is one of the largest trees of the Amazonian forest, frequently found two hundred feet in height, towering above the other trees, with a top resembling an immense vegetable dome. Logs one hundred feet long, without a branch, have often been hewn out of its trunk, ready for the saw-mill. Its timber is very hard and fine grained, and will stand the weather better than most other South American trees; but it cannot be procured in any great quantity, because, like many other trees of the Amazon, it is of a solitary habit, only two or three, or at most half a dozen, growing within the circuit of a mile.
It is easily distinguished from trees of other genera by its reddish, ragged bark, which is deeply furrowed, and from a decoction of which the Indians prepare a dye of a dark red colour. The fruit, about the size of an apple, is full of a rich juicy pulp, exceedingly agreeable to the taste, and much relished. This is the bread which the Mundurucú hoped to provide for the supper of his half-famished companions.
But the most singular, as well as the most important, product of the massaranduba is its milky juice. This is obtained by making an incision in the bark, when the white sap flows forth in a copious stream, soon filling a calabash or other vessel held under it. On first escaping from the tree it is of the colour and about the consistency of rich cream, and, but for a slightly balsamic odour might be mistaken for the genuine produce of the dairy. After a short exposure to the air it curdles, a thready substance forming upon the surface, resembling cheese, and so called by the natives. When diluted with water, the coagulation does not so rapidly take place; and it is usually treated in this manner, besides being strained, before it is brought to the table. The natives use it by soaking their farinha or maize-bread with the sap, and it is also used as cream in tea, chocolate, and coffee, many people preferring it on account of the balsamic flavour which it imparts to these beverages.
The milk of the massaranduba is in great demand throughout all the district where the tree is found, both in the Spanish and Portuguese territories of tropical South America. In Venezuela it is extensively used by the negroes, and it has been remarked that these people grow fatter during the season of the year when the palo de vaca is plenty. Certain it is that no ill effects have been known to result from a free use of it; and the vegetable cow cannot be regarded otherwise than as one of the most singular and interesting productions of beneficent Nature.