d from within and grow
before your eyes; and that each stem of Plantain will bear from
thirty to sixty pounds of rich food during the year of its short
life.

But, beside the grand Plantains and Bananas, there are other
interesting plants, whose names you have often heard. The tall
plant with stem unbranched, but knotty and zigzag, and leaves atop
like hemp, but of a cold purplish tinge, is the famous Cassava,
{313a} or Manioc, the old food of the Indians, poisonous till its
juice is squeezed out in a curious spiral grass basket. The young
Laburnums (as they seem), with purple flowers, are Pigeon-peas,
{313b} right good to eat. The creeping vines, like our Tamus, or
Black Bryony, are Yams, {313c}--best of all roots.

The branching broad-leaved canes, with strange white flowers, is
Arrowroot. {313d} The tall mallow-like shrub, with large pale
yellowish-white flowers, Cotton. The huge grass with beads on it
{313e} is covered with the Job's tears, which are precious in
children's eyes, and will be used as beads for necklaces. The
castor-oil plants, and the maize--that last always beautiful--are of
course well known. The arrow leaves, three feet long, on stalks
three feet high, like gigantic Arums, are Tanias, {313f} whose roots
are excellent. The plot of creeping convolvulus-like plants, with
purple flowers, is the Sweet, or true, Potato. {313g}

And we must not overlook the French Physic-nut, {313h} with its hemp
like leaves, and a little bunch of red coral in the midst, with
which the Negro loves to adorn his garden, and uses it also as
medicine; or the Indian Shot, {313i} which may be seen planted out
now in summer gardens in England. The Negro grows it, not for its
pretty crimson flowers, but because its hard seed put into a bladder
furnishes him with that detestable musical instrument the chac-chac,
wherewith he accompanies nightly that equally detestable instrument
the tom-tom.

The list of vegetables is already long: but there are a few more to
be added to it. For there, in a corner, creep some plants of the
Earth-nut, {314a} a little vetch which buries its pods in the earth.
The owner will roast and eat their oily seeds. There is also a tall
bunch of Ochro {314b}--a purple-stemmed mallow-flowered plant--whose
mucilaginous seeds will thicken his soup. Up a tree, and round the
house-eaves, scramble a large coarse Pumpkin, and a more delicate
Granadilla, {314c} wh