Constantly roaming through the woods, the children often made new
discoveries.
Fritz brought one day, after an excursion to the opposite side of the
stream beyond the Gap, a cluster of bananas, and also of cacao-beans,
from which chocolate is made.
The banana, although valuable and nourishing food for the natives of
the tropical countries where it grows, is not generally liked by
Europeans, and probably this variety was even inferior to many others,
for we found the fruit much like rotten pears, and almost uneatable.
The cacao seeds tasted exceedingly bitter, and it seemed wonderful that
by preparation they should produce anything so delicious as chocolate.
My wife, who now fancied no manufacture beyond my skill, begged for
plants, seeds, or cuttings to propagate in her nursery garden, already
fancying herself in the enjoyment of chocolate for breakfast, and I
promised to make a cacao plantation near home.
`Let me have bananas also,' said she, `for we may acquire a taste for
that celebrated fruit, and, at all events, I am sure I can make it into
an excellent preserve.'
The day before our return to Rockburg, Fritz went again to the inland
region beyond the river to obtain a large supply of young
banana-plants, and the cacao-fruit. He took the cajack, and a bundle of
reeds to float behind him as a raft to carry the fruit, plants, and
anything else he might wish to bring back.
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