Ma
361
Bonne.
derstand him. There are many kinds of bananas here called figues ;—the four most popular are the figues-bananes, which are plantains, I think ; the figues-makouenga, which grow wild, and have a red skin ; the figues-pommes (apple-bananas), which are large and yellow ; and the tifigues-desse (little-dessert-bananas), which are to be seen on all tables in St. Pierre. They are small, sweet, and always agreeable, even when one has no appetite for other fruits. It requires some little time to become accustomed to many tropical fruits, or at least to find patience as well as inclination to eat them. A large number, in spite of delicious flavor, are provokingly stony : such as the ripe guavas, the cherries, the barbadines ; even the corrossole and pomme-cannelle are little more than huge masses of very hard seeds buried in pulp of exquisite taste. The sapota, or sapodilla, is less characterized by stoniness, and one soon learns to like it. It has large flat seeds, which can be split into two with the finger-nail ; and a fine white skin lies between these two halves. It requires some skill to remove entire this little skin, or pellicle, without breaking it : to do so is said to be a test of affection. Perhaps this bit of folk-lore was suggested by the shape of the pellicle, which is that of a heart. The pretty fille-de-couleur asks her doudoux : — " £ s s ou ainmein
moin
1—pouloss
tiré
ti lapeau-là
sans
Woe
cassê-y."
to him if he breaks it ! . . . The most disagreeable fruit is, I think, the pomme-d'Haiti, or Haytian apple : it is very attractive exteriorly ; but has a strong musky odor and taste which nauseates. Few white créoles ever eat it. Of the oranges, nothing except praise can be said ; but there are fruits that look like oranges, and are not oranges, that are far more noteworthy. There is the chadèque, which grows here to fully three feet in circumference, and has a sweet pink pulp ; and there is the " forbidden-fruit " (fouitt-defendii), a sort of cross between 28
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