A species of fig-tree bears loaves of bread! It is quite a large tree, about forty feet high, and has wide spreading branches, thickly covered with very large leaves. It bears fruit abundantly, and during eight months of the year, there is always some ripe fruit to be found on the boughs. This fruit is round; is larger than a child’s head; weighs three or four pounds, and is rough and hairy on the outside. The thick green rind encloses a pulp, which is as white as wheat bread, and, when cooked, tastes very much like it, and is equally nourishing. To prepare it to be eaten, it is cut into thick slices, and laid upon a gridiron over a bed of hot coals. In a few minutes the “bread” is ready. Thus the natives of the countries where this fruit grows have bread for eight months of the year with very little trouble. If they did not have this kind they would not have any bread at all, for wheat and rye will not grow there. But they want bread the rest of the year too. So they take advantage of the time when the fruit is most abundant, and, from that which they do not want for immediate use, they prepare a paste that can be kept a long time without turning sour. And, during the four months the tree is without ripe fruit, they live upon this preparation. Tapioca is the singular production of a vegetable root. It is singular because, though wholesome and nutritious as food, it is produced from a strong poison. It is prepared as follows by native women. Roots of the manioc plant are gathered, and bruised into pulp with a wooden pestle. This pulp is wrapped in a net made of lily leaves. This is stuck upon a fork, and a heavy weight tied to the bottom of the net so as to press it tightly to squeeze out the manioc juice. A calabash receives the juice, which is very poisonous. Arrows and spear heads are dipped into it to make them certainly fatal. While this is going on the liquid is all the time depositing a white, starch-like substance in the bottom of the calabash. When all of this that the poisonous liquid contains is deposited, the juice is poured off, and the white substance is passed through clear water, and becomes tapioca. [Illustration: A FOREST OF MANGROVES.] When we are in the tropics we must not forget to visit the Mangroves. These trees grow thickly together in the ocean mud near the shore, and are very queer specimens of the vegetable world. To look at them from a little distance you would hardly know whether they were trees, or fishes, or sea-serpents. Their upper branches and trunks are like the first, their lower branches covered with oysters and other shell-fish appear like the second; and their long curiously twisted roots, standing partly out of the water, seem like the third. Sometimes, in passing over wet and swampy places, men walk on these roots. In such a case, a naked savage gets along much more easily than an European, with his boots and clothes, and perhaps a heavy gun.