To the negroes of the West Indian islands the plantain is an invaluable fruit, and, like bread to the Europeans, is with them denominated the staff of life. In Jamaica alone many thousand acres are planted with these trees. This fruit is usually gathered before it is ripe, and, after the skin has been peeled off, is roasted for a little while in a clear fire; it is then scraped and eaten as bread, for which it is an excellent substitute. Plantains are sometimes boiled, and eaten with salt meat; they are also cut into slices and fried, pounded, and made into puddings, and used in various other ways. Horses, cattle, swine, and other domestic animals, are fattened with them. When ripe they may be eaten raw, and, in this state, they have somewhat the taste of a ripe pear.
The leaves of the plantain-tree, being soft and smooth, are sometimes employed as dressings after blisters; and, when green, are used as food for hogs.
The vegetation of this tree is so rapid that if a line or thread be drawn across, and on a level with the top of one of the leaves, when it begins to expand, it will be seen, in the course of an hour, to have grown nearly an inch.
271. The BANANA is a valuable plant (Musa sapientum) which grows in the West Indies and other tropical countries, and has leaves about six feet in length, and a foot broad in the middle; and fruit four or five inches long, and about the shape of a cucumber.
When ripe, the banana is an agreeable fruit, with a soft and luscious pulp; and is frequently introduced in desserts in the West Indies. The Spaniards have a superstitious dislike to cut this fruit across; they always slice it from end to end, because, in the former case, the section presents an imaginary resemblance to the instruments of our Saviour's crucifixion. The banana is sometimes fried in slices as fritters. If the pulp of this fruit be squeezed through a fine sieve, it may be formed into small loaves, which, after having been properly dried, may be kept for a great length of time.
272. MILLET is a small yellowish seed of a grassy plant (Holcus sorghum), with large and compact stalks which rise to the height of seven or eight feet, and is much cultivated in several parts of India and Africa.
In some countries millet seed is ground into flour and converted into bread; but this is brown and heavy. It is, however, useful in other respects as food, and is an excellent seed for the fattening of poultry. A good vinegar has been made from it, by fermentation; and, on distillation, it yields a strong spirit. Millet seed is imported into this country from the East Indies, for the purpose chiefly of puddings; and, by many persons, it is preferred to rice. The stalks of the millet plant, if subjected to the same process that is adopted with the sugar-cane, yield a sweet juice, from which an excellent kind of sugar may be made.
273. GUM ARABIC is a well-known drug, obtained from a tree (Mimosa nilotica) which grows in Egypt.
This tree has leaves doubly winged, with spines at the base, and small flowers, of globular shape, growing four or five together on slender footstalks.
The principal supply of gum arabic in this country is obtained from Barbary, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf. The average quantity imported from the Persian Gulf, betwixt 1804 and 1808, was about 7500 hundred weight per annum, and the price for which it was vended at the East India Company's sales was about 3l. per hundred weight. It used formerly to be packed in skins, but it is now brought in large casks. The trees which yield it grow abundantly in numerous parts of Africa and Asia, but the gum does not freely exude from them except in tropical regions. It issues from clefts in the bark, in the same manner as the gum of the cherry and plum trees of our orchards and gardens: and, by exposure to the air, it soon becomes hard and solid. We are informed that, in some parts of Egypt, the inhabitants procure this gum, by boiling pieces of the roots of the trees, and afterwards separating it from the water. We receive gum arabic in small irregular masses, or rough pieces, of pale yellowish colour, and roundish shape.