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The chief food of the lower orders and slaves is yams and the jatropha, or cassada, of which there are two species commonly known, the jatropha janipha, and the jatropha manihot. The former contains a strong vegetable poison, which is destroyed by boiling; the latter is merely slightly narcotic in its effects, and both are easily converted into wholesome food.
In comparing the herbaceous and nourishing fibres of the young undeveloped leaves of the palm-trees with the sago of the Mauritia, of which the Indians make bread similar to that of the root of the Jatropha manihot, we involuntarily recollect the striking analogy which modern chemistry has proved to exist between ligneous matter and the amylaceous fecula.
David told us that it was called cassava, as well as manioc, and that its scientific name was Jatropha manihot. After a few trials he contrived to manufacture a kind of starch, which I had often seen in England under the name of tapioca. He was delighted when he succeeded in producing it, and Kate at once made some very nice puddings from it, by mixing it with honey to give it flavour.
In the gardens, Papaw, Croton, Jatropha, Buddleia, Cookia, Loquat, Litchi, Longan, all kinds of the orange tribe, and the cocoa-nut, some from their presence, and many from their profusion, indicated a decided change of climate, a receding from the desert north-west of India, and its dry winds, and an approach to the damper regions of the many-mouthed Ganges.
A gloomy vegetation of cactus, Jatropha gossypifolia, croton and mimosa covers the barren declivity of Cerro de la Popa. In herbalizing in those wild spots, our guides showed us a thick bush of Acacia cornigera, which had become celebrated by a deplorable event.
I did not touch it with my fingers naturally, but I managed to loop a piece of twine around the stem, and by that means I gingerly removed the flowers and carried them to an orchid-hunter of my acquaintance who chanced to be visiting Manipur. "Grahame that was my orchid man's name pronounced the specimen to be an unclassified species of jatropha; belonging to the Curcas family.
That amylaceous fecula which the seeds of the cereal plants furnish in all its purity, is found united with an acrid and sometimes even poisonous juice, in the roots of the arums, the Tacca pinnatifida, and the Jatropha manihot. The savage of America, like the savage of the South Sea islands, has learned to dulcify the fecula, by pressing and separating it from its juice.
These statements appear to me to be of some importance, when we wish to compare the nutritive matter which man can obtain from the same extent of soil, by covering it, in different climates, with bread-trees, plantains, jatropha, maize, potatoes, rice, and corn.
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