Thanks to the missionaries,
this plant now thrives only in these deep ravines, innocuous to
every one. Close by I saw the wild arum, the roots of which, when
well baked, are good to eat, and the young leaves better than
spinach. There was the wild yam, and a liliaceous plant called Ti,
which grows in abundance, and has a soft brown root, in shape and
size like a huge log of wood: this served us for dessert, for it is
as sweet as treacle, and with a pleasant taste. There were,
moreover, several other wild fruits, and useful vegetables. The
little stream, besides its cool water, produced eels and crayfish.
I did indeed admire this scene, when I compared it with an
uncultivated one in the temperate zones. I felt the force of the
remark that man, at least savage man, with his reasoning powers
only partly developed, is the child of the tropics.
As the evening drew to a close, I strolled beneath the gloomy shade
of the bananas up the course of the stream. My walk was soon
brought to a close by coming to a waterfall between two and three
hundred feet high; and again above this there was another. I
mention all these waterfalls in this one brook to give a general
idea of the inclination of the land.
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