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Antiqua
Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung, Kapitälchen; Fußnoten mit Asterisken; Schmuck: Kapitälchen.
We had heard of a tree, the juice of which is a
nourishing milk; it is called the Cow-Tree; and
we were assured that the negroes of the farm, who
drink plentifully of this vegetable milk, consider it as
a wholesome aliment. All the milky juices of plants
being acrid, bitter, and more or less poisonous, this
assertion appeared to us very extraordinary; but we
found, by experience, during our stay at Barbula, that
the virtues of the palo de vaca had not been exagge-
rated. This fine tree rises like the broad-leaved star-
appleChrysophyllum cainito.
alternate, are marked by lateral ribs, prominent at
the lower surface, and parallel; they are some of
them ten inches long. We did not see the flower:
the fruit is somewhat fleshy, and contains one, or
sometimes two nuts. When incisions are made in
the trunk of the Cow-Tree, it yields abundance of a
glutinous milk, tolerably thick, destitute of all acri-
mony, and of an agreeable and balmy smell. It was
offered to us in the shell of the tutumo, or calabash-
tree. We drank considerable quantities of it in the
evening before we went to bed, and very early in the
morning, without feeling the least injurious effect.
The ropiness of this milk alone renders it a little
disagreeable. The negroes and the free people, who
work in the plantations, drink it, dipping into it their
bread of maize or cassava. The major domo of the
farm told us, that the negroes grow sensibly fatter
during the season when the palo de vaca furnishes
them with most milk.
This juice, exposed to the air, presents at its sur-
face, perhaps in consequence of the absorption of
the atmospheric oxygen, membranes of a strongly
animalized substance, yellowish, stringy, and resem-
bling a cheesy substance; these membranes, separated
from the rest of the more aqueous liquid, are elastic,
almost like caoutchouc; but they undergo, in time,
the same phenomena of putrefaction as gelatine.
The people call the coagulum that separates by the
contact of the air, cheese; this coagulum grows sour
in the space of five or six days, as I observed in the
small portions which I carried to Nueva Valencia.
This extraordinary tree appears to be peculiar to
the Cordillera of the coast, particularly from Barbula
to the lake of Maracaybo. Some stocks of it exist
near the village of San Mateo, and in the valley of
Caucagua, three days’ journey east of Caraccas. At
Caucagua, the natives call the tree that furnishes
this nourishing juice the Milk-Tree,
They profess to recognise, from the thickness and
colour of the foliage, the trunks that yield the most
juice, as the herdsman distinguishes, from external
Mr. Kunth, to belong to the Sapota family (Hexandria Monogynia,)
anciently called Achras, commonly translated the Wild Pear, of
which four species are enumerated in Martyn’s
Miller. 1st, Mam-mee Sapota, otherwise called, Nippled Sapota, or the American
Marmalade, from which a marmalade is made like that of quinces.
It is planted in the gardens in most of the West India Islands.
2nd, Common Sapota, with a fruit larger than a quince, of a delicate
mellow taste. All the tender parts are full of a milky juice, ex-
tremely harsh, and bitterish: but the fruit though full of this while
young, is very sweet and agreeable when it ripens. 3rd, Cloven-flowered Sapota. All the herbaceous parts of this tree are milky.
Cultivated in Malabar, the fruit of which is of the size and form of
the olive, succulent, of a sweetish acid flavour. 4th, Willow-leavedSapota. No part of the tree is milky: called in
Bully Tree, or Galimeta-wood: it is reckoned good timber.
Amid the great number of curious phenomena
which have presented themselves to me in the course
of my travels, I confess there are few which have so
powerfully affected my imagination as the aspect of
the Cow-Tree. On the barren flank of a rock grows
a tree, with coriaceous and dry leaves; its large
woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone;
for several months in the year not a single shower
moistens its foliage; its branches appear dead and
dried; but when the trunk is pierced, there flows
from it a sweet nourishing milk. It is at the rising
of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most
abundant; the blacks and natives are then seen
hastening from all quarters, furnished with large
bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow, and
thickens at its surface; some empty their bowls near
the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their
children. We seem to behold the family of a shep-
herd, who distributes the milk of his flock.——
Humboldt’s
Personal Narrative.