ll, these fruits are not to be compared to those
of a tree growing just outside, at the back of my house--the far-famed
bread-fruit tree. Here, Tanda," and he spoke a few words to him. "Look
there, do you see it?"

It was a tree upwards of forty feet high, with enormous sharply lobed
leaves, some of which were one foot wide and one and a half long. The
fruit which Tanda picked was of the form and size of a melon, and
attached by its stem directly to the trunk.

"We must cut some, for it is the chief vegetable I have in season," said
my uncle, cutting it in slices, and handing it to Tanda to fry. "We
have some molasses to eat with it, produced from the sap of the
gomuti-palm."

Closely allied to it is the Jack-fruit, which resembles the bread-fruit.
This latter, Mr Sedgwick told us, attains the weight of nearly
seventy-five pounds; so that even an Indian coolie can only carry one at
a time. The part, he showed us, which is generally eaten, is a soft
pulpy substance, enveloping each seed. The bread-fruit was baked
entirely in the hot embers. It tasted, I thought, very much like mashed
potatoes and milk. My uncle said he always compared it to Yorkshire
pudding. It was a little fibrous, perhaps, towards the centre, though
generally smooth, and somewhat of the consistence of yeast dumplings and
batter pudding. Tanda fried part of it in slices, and also made a curry
of another part. We had it also as a vegetable, with a gravy poured
over it, to eat with meat. Another dish was prepared with sugar and
milk, which we were surprised to see, and a treacly substance procured
from some sugar-canes grown in a plantation near the house. It made a
most delicious pudding.

"You see, I have become somewhat of an epicure," observed my uncle; "but
indeed it has been one of my sources of amusement to see what delicious
dishes I could make out of the many bounties which Nature has spread
round me."

We had also, for meat, some pork--part of it fresh and part cured--a
joint of venison, and a piece of beef from an animal with which I was
afterwards to become acquainted.

I can scarcely describe the fish; but I know, among other things, there
was one of the enormous crabs which we saw at Amboyna.

Our dinner was spread on a bamboo table, covered with mats, in what my
uncle called his grand hall! It put me in mind somewhat of an ancient
hall surrounded by trophies of the chase; partly also of a necromancer's
cavern, as fro