Read Ebook: Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5. by Bruce James

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 830 lines and 73676 words, and 17 pages

This construction of the stalk of the papyrus seems to reproach Aristotle with want of observation. He says that no plant had either triangular or quadrangular stalks. Here we see an instance of the contrary in the papyrus, whose stalk is certainly and universally triangular; and we learn from Dioscorides that many more have quadrangular stalks, or stems of four angles.

It has but one root, which is large and strong, Pliny says, as thick as a man's arm: So it was, probably, when the plant was fifteen feet high, but it is now diminished in proportion, the whole length of the stalk, comprehending the head, being a little above ten, but the root is still hard and solid near the heart, and works with the turning loom tolerably well, as it did formerly when they made cups of it. In the middle of this long root arises the stalk at right angles, so when inverted it has the figure of a T, and on each side of the large root there are smaller elastic ones, which are of a direction perpendicular to it, and which, like the strings of a tent, steady it and fix it to the earth at the bottom. About two feet, or little more, of the lower part of the stalk is cloathed with long, hollow, sword-shaped leaves, which cover each other like scales, and fortify the foot of the plant. They are of a dusky brown, or yellow colour. I suppose the stalk was cut off below, at about where these leaves end.

The drawing represents the papyrus as growing. The head is not upright, but is inclined, as from its size it always must be in hot countries, in which alone it grows. In all such climates, there is some particular wind that reigns longer than others, and this being always the most violent, as well as the most constant, gives to heavy-headed trees, or plants, an inclination contrary to that from which it blows.

This plant is called el Berdi in Egypt, which signifies nothing in Arabic, and I suppose is old Egyptian. I have been told by a learned gentleman, that in Syria it is known by the name of Babeer, which approaches more to the sound of papyrus, and paper; this I never heard myself, but leave it entirely upon his authority.

BALESSAN, BALM, OR BALSAM.

The great value set upon this drug in the east remounts to very early ages; it is coeval with the India trade for pepper, and the beginning of it consequently lost in the darkness of the first ages. We know from scripture, the oldest history extant, as well as most infallible, that the Ishmaelites, or Arabian carriers and merchants, trafficking with the India commodities into Egypt, brought with them balm as part of the cargo with pepper; but the price that they paid for Joseph was silver, and not a barter with any of their articles of merchandise.

Strabo alone, of all the ancients, hath given us the true account of the place of its origin, "Near to this, that historian says, is the most happy land of the Sabeans, and they are a very great people. Among these, frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon grow, and in the coast that is about Saba the balsam also." Among the myrrh-trees behind Azab all along the coast to the Straits of Babelmandeb is its native country. It grows to a tree above fourteen feet high, spontaneously and without culture, like the myrrh, the coffee, and frankincense tree; they are all equally the wood of the country, and are occasionally cut down and used for fuel. We need not doubt but that it was early transplanted into Arabia, that is, into the south part of Arabia Felix, immediately fronting Azab, the place of its nativity. The high country of Arabia was too cold to receive it, being all mountainous; water freezes there.

There is an anecdote relating to Sir William Middleton, who was surprised and taken prisoner by the Turks in the first attempt to open the trade of the Red Sea, that when about to set out for Sanaa, corruptly called Zenan, the residence of the Imam, or prince of Arabia Felix, he was by the people desired to take his fur cloak along with him to keep him from the cold; he thought they were ridiculing him upon what he had to suffer from the approaching heat, which he was convinced in the middle of Arabia must be excessive.

The first plantation that succeeded seems to have been at Petra, the ancient metropolis of Arabia, now called Beder, or Beder Hunein, whence I got one of the specimens from which the present drawing is made.

Josephus, in the history of the antiquities of his country, says, that a tree of this balsam was brought to Jerusalem by the queen of Saba, and given, among other presents, to Solomon, who, as we know from scripture, was very studious of all sort of plants, and skilful in the description and distinction of them. Here it seems to have been cultivated and to have thriven, so that the place of its origin came to be forgotten.

Notwithstanding this positive authority of Josephus, and the great probability that attends it, we are not to put it in competition with what we have been told from scripture, as we have just now seen, that the place where it grew, and was sold to merchants, was Gilead in Judea, more than 1730 years before Christ, or 1000 before the queen of Saba; so that reading the verse, nothing can be more plain than that it had been transplanted into Judea, flourished, and had become an article of commerce in Gilead long before the period Josephus mentions: "And they sat down to eat bread, and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and behold, a company of Ishmaelites came from Gilead with their camels, bearing spicery, and balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt." Now, the spicery, or pepper, was certainly purchased by the Ishmaelites at the mouth of the Red Sea, where was the market for Indian goods, and at the same place they must have bought the myrrh, for that neither grew nor grows any where else than in Saba or Azabo east to Cape Gardefan, where were the ports for India, and whence it was dispersed all over the world.

The Ishmaelites, or Arabian carriers, loaded their camels at the mouth of the Red Sea with pepper and myrrh. For reasons not now known to us, they went and completed their cargo with balsam at Gilead, so that, contrary to the authority of Josephus, nothing is more certain, than 1730 years before Christ, and 1000 years before the queen of Saba came to Jerusalem, the balsam-tree had been transplanted from Abyssinia into Judea, and become an article of commerce there, and the place from which it originally was brought, through length of time, combined with other reasons, came to be forgotten.

Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Solinus,and Serapion, all say that this balsam came only from Judea. The words of Pliny are, "But to all other odours whatever, the balsam is preferred, produced in no other part but the land of Judea, and even there in two gardens only; both of them belonging to the king, one no more than twenty acres, the other still smaller."

At this time I suppose it got its name of Balsamum Judaicum, or, Balm of Gilead, and thence became an article in merchandise and fiscal revenue, which probably occasioned the discouragement of bringing it any more from Arabia, whence it very probably was prohibited as contraband. We shall suppose thirty acres planted with this tree would have produced more than all the trees in Arabia do at this day. Nor does the plantation of Beder Hunein amount to much more than that quantity, for we are still to observe, that even when it had been as it were naturalised in Judea, and acquired a name in the country, still it bore evident marks of its being a stranger there; and its being confined to two royal gardens alone, shews it was maintained there by force and culture, and was by no means a native of the country. And this is confirmed by Strabo, who speaks of it being in the king's palace or garden at Jericho. This place being one of the warmest in Judea, shews likewise their apprehensions about it, so that in Judea, we may imagine it was pretty much in the state of our myrtles in England, which, though cultivated in green-houses in all the rest of the island, yet grow beautifully and luxuriantly in Devonshire and Cornwall, the western parts of it.

Diodorus Siculus says, it grew in a valley in Arabia Felix; he should have said on a number of gentle, sloping hills in Arabia Deserta, which have a very small degree of elevation above the plain, but by no means resemble a valley. This place was the scene of three bloody battles between Mahomet and his kinsmen the Beni Koreish, who refused to be converts to his religion, or acknowledge his divine legation. These are at large described by several of the historians of that nation, with circumstances and anecdotes, as well interesting and entertaining, as elegantly told. They shew plainly that Mahomet's tribe, the Beni Koreish, did not receive their fanatical manners and disposition from Mahomet and his religion, but were just as obstinate, ignorant, and sanguinary when they were Pagans, as they were afterwards when converted and became Mahometans. The last of these battles, which was decisive in Mahomet's favour, gave him the sovereignty of Mecca, and was attended with the extirpation of some of the principal families in this tribe.

At this time the balsam is supposed, by being sold in Judea, and not accessible by reason of the commotions in Arabia, to have become almost forgotten in that last part, where the trade from Abyssinia, its native country, was likewise interrupted by this innovation of religion, and by Mahomet's profanation of the Caaba, or temple of the sun, the ancient resort of the Sabean merchants carrying on the trade of India. This interval the impostor thought proper for a pretended miracle; he said, that, from the blood of the Beni Koreish slain, there had sprung up this grove of trees, from the juice of which all the true believers on his side received a cure for their wounds, however fatal they appeared, nay, some of them were revived from even death itself. Since that time it has maintained its reputation equal to that which it had in antiquity.

Prosper Alpinus says, that one Messoner a eunuch, governor of Cairo in the year 1519, caused bring from Arabia forty plants, which he placed in the garden of Mattareah, where he superintended them. Every day he went to that garden to pay his devotions to the Virgin Mary. It was many times renewed, and has as often perished since. Bellonius says, that in his time there were ten plants at Mattareah, and he is of opinion, that in all ages they grew well in Arabia, which is not true, for those at Beder are constantly supplied with new plants so soon as the old ones decay. There was none existing at Mattareah the two several times I visited Cairo, but there were some of the Christians still living there that remembered one plant in that garden.

There were three productions from this tree very much esteemed among the ancients. The first was called Opobalsamum, or, Juice of the Balsam, which was the finest kind, composed of that greenish liquor found in the kernel of the fruit: The next was Carpo-balsamum, made by the expression of the fruit when in maturity. The third was Xylo-balsamum, the worst of all, it was an expression or decoction of the small new twigs of a reddish colour. These twigs are still gathered in little faggots and sent to Venice, where I am told they are an ingredient in the Theriac, or of some sort of compound drug made in the laboratories there: But the principal quantity of balsam in all times was produced by incision, as it is at this day. Concerning this, too, many fables have been invented and propagated.

Tacitus says, that this tree was so averse to iron that it trembled upon a knife being laid near it, and some pretend the incision should be made by ivory, glass, or stone. There is no doubt but the more attention there is given to it, and the cleaner the wound is made, the better this balsam will be. It is now, as it probably ever has been, cut by an ax, when the juice is in its strongest circulation in July, August, and beginning of September. It is then received into a small earthen bottle, and every day's produce gathered and poured into a larger, which is kept closely corked. The Arabs Harb, a noble family of Beni Koreish, are the proprietors of it, and of Beder, where it grows. It is a station of the Emir Hadje, or pilgrims going to Mecca, half way between that city and Medina.

Some books speak of a white sort brought by the caravans from Mecca, and called Balsam of Mecca, and others a balsam called that of Judea, but all these are counterfeits or adulterations. The balsam of Judea, which I have already mentioned, was long ago lost, when the troubles of that country withdrew the royal attention from it; but, as late as Galen's time, it not only existed, but was growing in many places of Palestine besides Jericho, and there is no doubt but it is now totally lost there.

When Sultan Selim made the conquest of Egypt and Arabia in the year 1516, three pound was then the tribute ordered to be sent to Constantinople yearly, and this proportion is kept up to this day. One pound is due to the governor of Cairo, one pound to the Emir Hadje who conducts the pilgrims to Mecca, half a pound to the basha of Damascus, and several smaller quantities to other officers, after which, the remainder is sold or farmed out to some merchants, who, to increase the quantity, adulterate it with oil of olives and wax, and several other mixtures, consulting only the agreement of colour, without considering the aptitude in mixing; formerly we were told it was done with art, but nothing is easier detected than this fraud now.

It does not appear to me, that the ancients had ever seen this plant, they describe it so variously; some will have it a tree, some a shrub, and some a plant only; and Prosper Alpinus, a modern, corroborates the errors of the ancients, by saying it is a kind of vine, . The figure he has given of it is a very bad one, and leaves us entirely in doubt in what class to place it. The defect of the plant in Judea and in Egypt, and the contradiction in the description of the ancients as to its figure and resemblance, occasioned a doubt that the whole plants in these two countries, and Arabia also, had been lost in the desolation occasioned by the Mahometan conquest; and a warm dispute arose between the Venetians and Romans, whether the drug used by the former in the Theriac was really and truly the old genuine opobalsamum? The matter was referred to the pope, who directed proper inquiry to be made in Egypt, which turned out entirely in favour of the Venetians, and the opobalsamum continuing as formerly.

A very learned and tedious treatise was published by Veslingius, in the year 1643, at Padua, where this affair was discussed at full length. As both parties of the disputants seem to argue concerning what it is from the misunderstood reports of what it was, I shall content myself briefly with stating what the qualities of the opobalsamum are, without taking pains to refute the opinions of those that have reported what the opobalsamum is not.

The opobalsamum, or juice flowing from the balsam-tree, at first when it is received into the bottle or vase from the wound from whence it issues, is of a light, yellow colour, apparently turbid, in which there is a whitish cast, which I apprehend are the globules of air that pervade the whole of it in its first state of fermentation; it then appears very light upon shaking. As it settles and cools, it turns clear, and loses that milkiness which it first had when flowing from the tree into the bottle. It then has the colour of honey, and appears more fixed and heavy than at first. After being kept for years, it grows a much deeper yellow, and of the colour of gold. I have some of it, which, as I have already mentioned in my travels, I got from the Cadi of Medina in the year 1768; it is now still deeper in colour, full as much so as the yellowest honey. It is perfectly fluid, and has lost very little either of its taste, smell, or weight. The smell at first is violent and strongly pungent, giving a sensation to the brain like to that of volatile salts when rashly drawn up by an incautious person. This lasts in proportion to its freshness, for being neglected, and the bottle uncorked, it quickly loses this quality, as it probably will at last by age, whatever care is taken of it.

In its pure and fresh state it dissolves easily in water. If dropt on a woollen cloth, it will wash out easily, and leaves no stain. It is of an acrid, rough, pungent taste, is used by the Arabs in all complaints of the stomach and bowels, is reckoned a powerful antiseptic, and of use in preventing any infection of the plague. These qualities it now enjoys, in all probability, in common with the various balsams we have received from the new world, such as the balsam of Tolu, of Peru, and the rest; but it is always used, and in particular esteemed by the ladies, as a cosmetic: As such it has kept up its reputation in the east to this very day. The manner of applying it is this; you first go into the tepid bath till the pores are sufficiently opened, you then anoint yourself with a small quantity, and, as much as the vessels will absorb; never-fading youth and beauty are said to be the consequences of this. The purchase is easy enough. I do not hear that it ever has been thought restorative after the loss of either.

The figure I have here given of the balsam may be depended upon, as being carefully drawn, after an exact examination, from two very fine trees brought from Beder Hunein; the first by the Cadi of Medina at Yambo; the second at Jidda, by order of Yousef Kabil, vizir or minister to the sherriffe of Mecca. The first was so deliberately executed, that the second seemed of no service but to confirm me in the exactitude of the first. The tree was 5 feet 2 inches high from where the red root begins, or which was buried in the earth, to where it divides itself first into branches. The trunk at thickest was about 5 inches diameter, the wood light and open, and incapable of polishing, covered with a smooth bark of bluish-white, like to a standard cherry-tree in good health, which has not above half that diameter; indeed a part of the bark is a reddish brown; it flattens at top like trees that are exposed to snow-blasts or sea-air, which gives it a stunted appearance. It is remarkable for a penury of leaves. The flowers are like that of the acacia-tree, white and round, only that three hang upon three filaments, or stalks, where the acacia has but one. Two of these flowers fall off and leave a single fruit; the branches that bear this are the shoots of the present year; they are of a reddish colour, and tougher than the old wood: it is these that are cut off and put into little faggots, and sent to Venice for the Theriac, when bruised or drawn by fire, and formerly these made the Xylo-balsamum.

Concerning the vipers which, Pliny says, were frequent among the balsam trees I made very particular inquiry; several were brought me alive, both to Yambo and Jidda. Of these I shall speak in another place, when I give the figure, and an account of that animal so found.

SASSA, MYRRH, AND OPOCALPASUM.

At the time when I was on the borders of the Tal-Tal, or Troglodyte country, I sought to procure myself branches and bark of the myrrh-tree, enough preserved to be able to describe it and make a design; but the length and ruggedness of the way, the heat of the weather, and the carelessness and want of resources of naked savages always disappointed me. In those goat-skin bags into which I had often ordered them to put small branches, I always found the leaves mostly in powder; some few that were entire seemed to resemble much the acacia vera, but were wider towards the extremity, and more pointed immediately at the end. In what order the leaves grew I never could determine. The bark was absolutely like that of the acacia vera; and among the leaves I often met with a small, straight, weak thorn, about two inches long.

These were all the circumstances I could combine relative to the myrrh-tree, too vague and uncertain to risk a drawing upon, when there still remained so many desiderata concerning it; and as the king was obstinate not to let me go thither after what had happened to the surgeon's mate and boat's crew of the Elgin Indiaman, I was obliged to abandon the drawing of the myrrh-tree to some more fortunate traveller, after having in vain attempted to procure it at Azab, as I have already mentioned.

At the same time that I was taking these pains about the myrrh, I had desired the savages to bring me all the gums they could find, with the branches and bark of the trees that produced them. They brought me at different times some very fine pieces of incense, and at another time a very small quantity of a bright colourless gum, sweeter on burning than incense, but no branches of either tree, though I found this latter afterwards in another part of Abyssinia. But at all times they procured me quantities of gum of an even and close grain, and of a dark brown colour, which was produced by a tree called Sassa, and twice I received branches of this tree in tolerable order, and of these I made a drawing.

Some weeks after, while walking at Emfras, a Mahometan village, whose inhabitants are myrrh merchants, I saw a large tree with the whole upper part of the trunk, and the large branches, so covered with bosses and knobs of gum, as to appear monstrously deformed, and inquiring farther about this tree, I found that it had been brought, many years before, from the myrrh country, by merchants, and planted there for the sake of its gum, with which these Mahometans stiffened the blue Surat cloths they got damaged from Mocha, to trade in with the Galla and Abyssinians. Neither the origin of the tree which they called Sassa, nor the gum, could allow me to doubt a moment that it was the same as what had been brought to me from the myrrh country, but I had the additional satisfaction to find the tree all covered over with beautiful crimson flowers of a very extraordinary and strange construction. I began then a drawing anew, with all that satisfaction known only to those who have been conversant in such discoveries.

I took pieces of the gum with me; it is very light. Galen complains that, in his time, the myrrh was often mixed with a drug which he calls Opocalpasum, by a Greek name, but what the drug was is totally unknown to us at this day, as nothing similar to the Greek name is found in the language of the country. But as the only view of the savage, in mixing another gum with his myrrh, must have been to increase the quantity, and as the great plenty in which this gum is produced, and its colour, make it very proper for this use, and above all, as there is no reason to think there is another gum-bearing tree of equal qualities in the country where the myrrh grows, it seems to me next to a proof, that this must have been the opocalpasum of Galen.

I must however confess, that Galen says the opocalpasum was so far from being an innocent drug, that it was a mortal poison, and had produced very fatal effects. But as those Troglodytes, though now more ignorant than formerly, are still well acquainted with the properties of their herbs and trees, it is not possible that the savage, desiring to increase his sales, would mix them with a poison that must needs diminish them. And we may therefore without scruple suppose that Galen was mistaken in the quality ascribed to this drug, and that he might have imagined, from tenderness to the profession, that people died of the opocalpasum who perhaps really died of the physician: First, Because we know of no gum or resin that is a mortal poison: Secondly, Because, from the construction of its parts, gum could not have the activity which violent poison has; and considering the small quantities in which myrrh is taken, and the opocalpasum could have been but in an inconsiderable proportion to the myrrh, to have killed, it must have been a very active poison indeed: Thirdly, these accidents from a known cause must have brought myrrh into disuse, as certainly as the Spaniards mixing arsenic with bark would banish that drug when we saw people die of it. Now this never was the case, it maintained its character among the Greeks and the Arabs, and so down to our days; and a modern physician, Van Helmont, thinks it might make man immortal if it could be rendered perfectly soluble in the human body. Galen then was mistaken as to the poisonous quality of the opocalpasum. The Greek physician knew little of the Natural History of Arabia, less still of that of Abyssinia, and we who have followed them know nothing of either.

This gum being put into water, swells and turns white, and loses all its glue; it very much resembles gum adragant in quality, and may be eaten safely. This specimen came from the Troglodyte country in the year 1771. The Sassa, the tree which produces the opocalpasum, does not grow in Arabia. Arabian myrrh is easily known from Abyssinian by the following method: Take a handful of the smallest pieces found at the bottom of the basket where the myrrh was packed, and throw them into a plate, and just cover them with water a little warm, the myrrh will remain for some time without visible alteration, for it dissolves slowly, but the gum will swell to five times its original size, and appear so many white spots amidst the myrrh.

Emfras, as I have said, is a large village something more than twenty miles south from Gondar, situated upon the face of a hill of considerable height above the lake Tzana, of which, and all its islands, it has a very distinct and pleasant view; it is divided from the lake by a large plain, near which is the island of Mitraha, one of the burying-places of the kings. The inhabitants of the lower town, close on the banks of the small river Arno, are all Mahometans, many of them men of substance, part of them the king's tent-makers, who follow the camp, and pitch his tents in the field; the others are merchants to the myrrh and frankincense country, that is, from the east parallel of the kingdom of Dancali to the point Cape Gardefan, or Promontorium Aromatum; they also bring salt from the plains, on the west of the kingdom of Dancali, where fossile salt is dug; it is on the S. E. border of the kingdom of Tigr?. These Mahometans trade also to the Galla, to the westward of the Nile; their principal commodity is myrrh and damaged cargoes of blue Surat cloth, which they unfold and clean, then stiffen them with gum, and fold them in form of a book as when they were new.

This gum, which is called Sassa, they at first brought from the myrrh country behind Azab, till ingenious and sagacious people had carried plants of the tree to their different villages, where they have it growing in great perfection, and more than supply the uses of the merchants.

This tree grows to a great height, not inferior to that of an English elm; that from which this draught was made was about two feet diameter; the gum grows on all sides of the trunk, in quantity enough almost to cover it, in form of large globes, and so it does on all the principal branches. These lumps are sometimes so large as to weigh two pound, though naturally very light.

The bark of the tree is thin and of a bluish colour, not unlike that of a cherry-tree when young, or rather whiter. The wood is white and hard, only the young branches which carry the flower are red. The leaves are joined to the sides of the small branches by a small pedicle of considerable strength, the leaves are two and two, or opposite to each other, and have no single leaf at the point; they are strongly varnished both on one side and the other, the back rather lighter than the foreside of the leaf. The branches that carry the leaves have about an inch of the stalk bare, where it is fixed to the larger branch. There are generally fourteen leaves, each of about three quarters of an inch long. At the top of the branch are knots out of which come three small stalks, bare for about an inch and a half, then having a number of small tubes, which, when they open at the top, put forth a long pistil from the bottom of the tube. The top of the tube, divided into five segments, or petals, arrives about one third up the pistil, and makes the figure of a calix or perianthium to it. From this tube proceeds a great number of very small capillaments of a pink colour, at the end of each of which hangs a purple stigma. At the top of this pistil is a large bunch of still finer fibres, or capillaments, with stigmata likewise, and at the end the pistil is rounded as if forming a fruit; without a very distinct drawing, it would be difficult to make a description that should be intelligible.

Nothing can be more beautiful, or more compounded, than the formation of this flower, though it has no odour; the head is composed of about thirty of these small branches now described, which make a very beautiful mass, and is of a pink colour of different shades. At sun-set, the leaves on each side of the branch shut face to face like the sensitive tribe. I never saw any seed or fruit that it bore, nor any thing like the rudiments of seed, unless it be that very small rotundity that appears at the end of the pistil, which seem to bear no proportion to so large a tree.

ERGETT Y'DIMMO.

The two beautiful shrubs which I have here given to the reader are called by the name of Ergett, which we may suppose, in Abyssinian botany, to be the generic name of the mimosa, as both of these have the same name, and both of the same family, of which there are many varieties in Abyssinia.

This first is called the Bloody Ergett, as we may suppose from the pink filaments of which this beautiful and uncommon flower is in part composed, and which we may therefore call Mimosa Sanguinea. The upper part of the flower is composed of curled, yellow filaments, and the bottom a pink of the same structure. I never saw it in any other state. Before the blossoms spread it appears in the form here exhibited. The pink, or lower part, in its unripe state, is composed of green tubercules, larger and more detached than where the yellow flower is produced, whose tubercules are smaller and closer set together. I need not say the leaves are of the double pinnated kind, as that and every thing else material can be learned from the figure, full as perfectly as if the flower was before them; none of the parts, however trifling and small, being neglected in the representation, and none of them supposed or placed there out of order, for ornament, or any other cause whatever: a rule which I would have the reader be persuaded is invariably observed in every article represented in this collection, whether tree or plant, beast, bird, or fish.

ERGETT EL KRONE.

The next of this species of Ergett or Mimosa, is called in Abyssinia Ergett el Krone, or the Horned Ergett; I apprehend the figure of the pods have given it that appellation. Its flower in size and form very much resembles the acacia vera, only that it is attached to the branch by a long and strong woody stalk, which grows out at the bottom of the branch bearing the leaves, and is sheltered as in a case by the lower part of it. The branches of it are all covered with very short, strong, sharp-pointed thorns, whose point is inclined backward towards the root. Its pods are covered with a prickly kind of hair, which, when touched, stick in your fingers and give very uneasy sensations. The pods are divided into thirteen divisions, in each of which are three round seeds, hard and shining, of a dusky brownish colour. The flower has scarcely any smell, nor do I know that it is of any utility whatever. Both these beautiful shrubs were found upon the banks of the river Arno, between Emfras and the lake Tzana. The soil is black mould, with a great mixture or composition of rotten putrified leaves, thinly covering the rock in the temperate part of Abyssinia. What I have to observe of both these shrubs is, that they shut their leaves upon the violent rains of winter, and are never fully expanded till the sun and fair season again return.

ENSETE.

The Ensete is an herbaceous plant. It is said to be a native of Narea, and to grow in the great swamps and marshes in that country, formed by many rivers rising there, which have little level to run to either ocean. It is said that the Galla, when transplanted into Abyssinia, brought for their particular use the coffee-tree, and the Ensete, the use of neither of which were before known. However, the general opinion is, that both are naturally produced in every part of Abyssinia, provided there is heat and moisture. It grows and comes to great perfection at Gondar, but it most abounds in that part of Maitsha and Goutto west of the Nile, where there are large plantations of it, and is there almost, exclusive of any thing else, the food of the Galla inhabiting that province; Maitsha is nearly upon a dead level, and the rains have not slope to get off easily, but stagnate and prevent the sowing of grain. Vegetable food would therefore be very scarce in Maitsha, were it not for this plant.

Some who have seen my drawing of this plant, and at the same time found the banana in many parts of the east, have thought the Ensete to be a species of the Musa. This however, I imagine, is without any sort of reason. It is true, the leaf of the banana resembles that of the Ensete, it bears figs, and has an excrescence from its trunk, which is terminated by a conical figure, chiefly differing from the Ensete in size and quantity of parts, but the figs of the banana are in shape of a cucumber, and this is the part which is eaten. This fig is sweet though mealy, and of a taste highly agreeable. It is supposed to have no seeds, though in fact there are four small black seeds in every fig belonging to it. But the figs of the Ensete are not eatable; they are of a tender, soft substance; watery, tasteless, and in colour and consistence similar to a rotten apricot; they are of a conical form, crooked a little at the lower end, about an inch and a half in length, and an inch in breadth where thickest. In the inside of these is a large stone half an inch long, of the shape of a bean or cushoo-nut, of a dark brown colour, and this contains a small seed, which is seldom hardened into fruit, but consists only of skin.

The long stalk that bears the figs of the Ensete springs from the center of the plant, or rather is the body or solid part of the plant itself. Upon this, where it begins to bend, are a parcel of loose leaves, then grows the fig upon the body of the plant without any stalk, after which the top of the stalk is thick-set with small leaves, in the midst of which it terminates the flower in form of the artichoke; whereas in the banana, the flower, in form of the artichoke, grows at the end of that shoot, or stalk, which proceeds from the middle of the plant, the upper part of which bears the row of figs.

The leaves of the Ensete are a web of longitudinal fibres closely set together; the leaves grow from the bottom, and are without stalks; whereas the banana is in shape like a tree, and has been mistaken for such. One half of it is divided into a stem, the other is a head formed of leaves, and, in place of the stem that grows out of the Ensete, a number of leaves rolled together round like a truncheon, shoots out of the heart of the banana, and renews the upper as the under leaves fall off; but all the leaves of the banana have a long stalk; this fixes them to the trunk, which they do not embrace by a broad base, or involucrum, as the Ensete does.

But the greatest differences are still remaining. The banana, has, by some, been mistaken for a tree of the palmaceous tribe, for no other reason but a kind of similarity in producing the fruit on an excrescence or stalk growing from the heart of the stem; but still the musa is neither woody nor perennial; it bears fruit but once, and in all these respects it differs from trees of the palmaceous kind, and indeed from all sort of trees whatever. The Ensete, on the contrary, has no naked stem, no part of it is woody; the body of it, for several feet high, is esculent; but no part of the banana can be eaten. As soon as the stalk of the Ensete appears perfect and full of leaves, the body of the plant turns hard and fibrous, and is no longer eatable; before, it is the best of all vegetables; when boiled, it has the taste of the best new wheat-bread not perfectly baked.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet