One word more: A few hundreds of Indian women, at most, have furnished
this horrid spectacle; but our inquisitions, our atrocious madmen
calling themselves judges, have put to death in the flames more than a
hundred thousand of our brethren--men, women, and children--for things
which no one has understood. Let us pity and condemn the Brahmins; but
let us not forget our miserable selves!
Truly, we have forgotten one very essential point in this short article
on the Brahmins, which is, that their sacred books are full of
contradictions; but the people know nothing of them, and the doctors
have solutions ready--senses figured and figurative, allegories, types,
express declarations of Birma, Brahma, and Vishnu, sufficient to shut
the mouth of any reasoner.
BREAD-TREE.
The bread-tree grows in the Philippine islands, and principally in those
of Guam and Tinian, as the cocoa-tree grows in the Indies. These two
trees, alone, if they could be multiplied in our climate, would furnish
food and drink sufficient for all mankind.
The bread-tree is taller and more bulky than our common apple-trees; its
leaves are black, its fruit is yellow, and equal in dimensions to the
largest apple. The rind is hard; and the cuticle is a sort of soft,
white paste, which has the taste of the best French rolls; but it must
be eaten fresh, as it keeps only twenty-four hours, after which it
becomes dry, sour and disagreeable; but, as a compensation, the trees
are loaded with them eight months of the year. The natives of the
islands have no other food; they are all tall, stout, well made,
sufficiently fleshy, and in the vigorous health which is necessarily
produced by the use of one wholesome aliment alone: and it is to negroes
that nature has made this present.
Corn is assuredly not the food of the greater part of the world. Maize
and cassava are the food of all America. We have whole provinces in
which the peasants eat none but chestnut bread, which is more nourishing
and of better flavor than the rye or barley bread on which so many feed,
and is much better than the rations given to the soldiers. Bread is
unknown in all southern Africa. The immense Indian Archipelago, Siam,
Laos, Pegu, Cochin-China, Tonquin, part of China, the Malabar and
Coromandel coasts, and the banks of the Ganges, produce rice, which is
easier of cultivation, and for which wheat is neglected. Corn is
absolutely unknown for the space of five hundred leagues on the coast of
the Icy Sea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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