When we contemplate the vegetable productions of nature, we find that they impart a tranquillity to the mind, which the animal kingdom, ever slaves to conflicting passions, can never produce;—when suffering from violent emotions, an indescribable degree of repose is felt while viewing the tranquil but beautiful scene of a well-furnished garden, or the more magnificent grandeur of forest scenery. A calmness is produced, which, counteracting our more violent passions, leads us back to our sober reason, and to reflection. Among the splendid, varied, and profuse vegetation, with which tropical countries abound in so infinite a degree, the magnificent, herbaceous plant, the Plantain tree, usually attracts particular notice; and, together with the cocoa and other palms, are the productions of the vegetable kingdom which adorn the picture of the artist, when depicting the scenery of the tropics. The broad leaves overhang gracefully the succulent and huge stem of this plant; whilst, just at their bases, huge clusters of fruit, of yellow, red, and other colours, contrast harmoniously with the shining, dark-green foliage. The size this splendid plant usually attains is eight feet; but I have seen them at the elevation of twelve, and even fifteen feet, with a diameter of stalk from one foot to two feet. The stem is formed partly from the united petioles of the leaves; and they are said to contain such a quantity of spiral vessels, that they are capable of being pulled out by handfuls, and are actually collected, in the West Indies, and sold as tinder: or, according to the quotation from “Decandolle’s Organographie Végétale,” tom. i. p. 38, “the top of the Plantain tree appears to be composed almost entirely of spiral vessels, when cut across; and so abundant are they, as to be collected in handfuls, in the Antilles, and form a kind of tinder.” The number of threads capable of being drawn from each convolution of these spiral vessels, is from seven, as M. de la Chesnay has calculated even to twenty-two. (Idem, p. 37.) The young shoots of the Banana trees make an excellent edible. The threads procured from the stalks of some species of this family are used for very fine and delicate-textured linen and muslin. At Manilla there is an extensive manufacture of muslins and sinamaya, or grass cloth, from the coarsest to the finest texture it is possible to manufacture, and, sometimes it has been stated, “made of fibres so fine, that they require to be manufactured under water, because, if exposed to the sun and air, they become too fragile to work.”[145] The coarsest fibres of the same plant form the Avaca, or Manilla hemp of commerce, used in the manufacture of cordage. The species of Musa is called _M. textilis_; but I do not consider it at all accurately known: it forms plantations at Manilla, but I could never see it during my visit to that country.