Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/208

 “Faith,” he replied, “I am beginning to understand the charms of anthropophagy.”

“Ned, Ned, what are you saying? You a cannibal! I shall not be safe so near you in the cabin now. Suppose I should wake up some fine morning, half eaten?”

“Friend Conseil, I like you very much, but not enough to eat you, unless under the pressure of necessity.”

“I am not proud,” replied Conseil. “Let us go on. We must kill some game to satisfy this cannibal, or one of these mornings Monsieur will only have the fragments of a servant to wait on him.”

All this time we were penetrating into the wooded glades of the forest. We looked through it in every way.

Chance brought about what we desired in this search for vegetables, and one of the most useful products of tropical regions furnished us with an article of food much needed on board. I mean the bread-fruit, which is very plentiful in the island of Gueboroar, and I there noticed the variety without grains, which in Malaya is entitled “rima.”

This tree is distinguished from others by its upright stem, which is about forty feet high. The top is gracefully rounded, and is composed of large multilobed leaves, known to naturalists at once by this “artocorpus.” From this green mass the fruit detaches itself. It is nearly four inches long, and of hexagonal form. A most useful vegetable supplied by nature to countries where corn does not grow, and which, without any cultivation, yields its fruit during eight months of the year.