Shadrach and Abednego, in accordance with the usual custom among these
people of giving only Scripture names to their children.
During the time I resided in this place, I enjoyed a luxury I have never
met with either before or since--the true bread-fruit. A good deal of it
has been planted about here and in the surrounding villages, and almost
every day we had opportunities of purchasing some, as all the boats
going to Amboyna were unloaded just opposite my door to be dragged
across the isthmus. Though it grows in several other parts of the
Archipelago, it is nowhere abundant, and the season for it only lasts a
short time. It is baked entire in the hot embers, and the inside scooped
out with a spoon. I compared it to Yorkshire pudding; Charles Allen said
it was like mashed potatoes and milk. It is generally about the size of
a melon, a little fibrous towards the centre, but everywhere else quite
smooth and puddingy, something in consistence between yeast-dumplings
and batter-pudding. We sometimes made curry or stew of it, or fried it
in slices; but it is no way so good as simply baked. It may be eaten
sweet or savory. With meat and gravy it is a vegetable superior to any
I know, either in temperate or tropical countries. With sugar, milk,
butter, or treacle, it is a delicious pudding, having a very slight and
delicate but characteristic flavour, which, like that of good bread and
potatoes, one never gets tired of. The reason why it is comparatively
scarce is that it is a fruit of which the seeds are entirely aborted by
cultivation, and the tree can therefore only be propagated by cuttings.
The seed-bearing variety is common all over the tropics, and though the
seeds are very good eating, resembling chestnuts, the fruit is quite
worthless as a vegetable. Now that steam and Ward's cases render the
transport of young plants so easy, it is much to be wished that the best
varieties of this unequalled vegetable should be introduced into our
West India islands, and largely propagated there. As the fruit will keep
some time after being gathered, we might then be able to obtain this
tropical luxury in Covent Garden Market.
Although the few months I at various times spent in Amboyna were not
altogether very profitable to me in the way of collections, it will
always remain as a bright spot in the review of my Eastern travels,
since it was there that I first made the acquaintance of those glorious
birds and insects which render the Moluccas classic ground in the
eyes of the naturalist, and characterise its fauna as one of the most
remarkable and beautiful upon the globe. On the 20th of February I
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