. A flying trip to the tropics. A record of an ornithological visit to the United States of Colombia, South America and to the island of Curaçao, West Indies, in the year 1892 . g comes so easily to them, their wants are so fewand so easily supplied, that there is no incentive for them to a native wishes to set up a house for himself, he selects a con-venient spot along the rivers bank, then with his machete cutsdown the bushes and vines and girdles the larger trees over an acreor two, clears off the debris by fire, then plants a hundred plantainshoots. In a little over six months
. A flying trip to the tropics. A record of an ornithological visit to the United States of Colombia, South America and to the island of Curaçao, West Indies, in the year 1892 . g comes so easily to them, their wants are so fewand so easily supplied, that there is no incentive for them to a native wishes to set up a house for himself, he selects a con-venient spot along the rivers bank, then with his machete cutsdown the bushes and vines and girdles the larger trees over an acreor two, clears off the debris by fire, then plants a hundred plantainshoots. In a little over six months the plants will have fruit ready THE MAGDALENA RIVER. 75 for food. One bunch, which can be bought along- the river for areal, will keep a man in food for ten days. The plantains are eatengreen or ripe, boiled, baked, fried, or raw, and are a fair substitutefor potatoes and bread. As soon as the bunch of fruit is cut off,the plant is cut down close to the ground, and it innuediately putsup fresh shoots which bear again in six months, and so on. Thenatives call plantains plutanos, and bananas they call platani-tos, little plantains. The bananas that we got in Colombia were. A i;OMiO UU ( OX lilE AlAUUALEXA.(By pennission of Bureau of American Republics.) among the most delicious of fruits. They were small, with a skinas thin as a kid glove, and of an exquisitely delicate flavor, incom-parably superior to those that we have. These will not beartransportation. From seeing the biuiches before our fruit stores, Ihad always thought that bananas grew pendent on the bunch, butthey grow with their free ends pointing up. The natives raise alittle corn, but there is no systematic method of planting or cultivat-ing it. The difference in cultivation is shown by the ears, on whichthe grains are irregularly distributed, and not in long parallelrows as in our corn. As there are no mills, they grind the little 76 A FLYING TRIP TO THE TROPICS. corn tliat tliey need between two stones, t
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