Our viands

think all sufficient. Even as food for pigs and poultry, rice is despised among us, and it is a singular fact that fowls fed on rice for a week only, will grow very fat, but if the diet is continued longer they will lose flesh instead of gaining it. Rice would seem to be indigenous in Asia, although in modern times it has spread widely through the tropical regions of America, where, indeed, it has also been found in a wild state. It is never likely to be grown extensively in Europe, as it requires a combination of heat and moisture; and it seems strange that it should have become such a favourite and almost universal crop in India seeing its necessity for water. In China, we are told, a variety is grown which is not so dependent upon moisture, and which is called imperial rice, because it was discovered by one of the emperors, who, in walking through a rice field, noticed one stalk much taller and finer than the rest; this he marked, and when it was ripe it was taken and planted in the imperial gardens, cultivated with care, and became a new species. It would seem advisable to cultivate this imperial or mountain rice in such countries as India, but probably there are disadvantages attending its cultivation not noted by the historian. According to Pliny, linseed meal was used fried and mixed with honey for bread among Asiatics, and also by the Lombards and Piedmontese, and hempseed was also fried and served for dessert. Gruel, which with us is reckoned as food for invalids only, was a national dish among the Romans. Two of the favourite invalid foods of the present day must be mentioned here, for although in very general use few people know their origin. Sago, so much in favour among the sick, and in the nursery, VARIOUS BREAD-STUFFS 49 is the pith of the sago palm, growing in marshy land in the East Indies. One tree will produce from 500 to 600 Ibs. of sago, but the tree takes fifteen years to come to maturity. Arrowroot, on the contrary, is, properly speaking, a product of the West Indies, the best coming from Bermuda, but, strange to say, very little is known of the plant which produces it, and probably it is extracted from several roots, in the same manner as cassava from the Jatropha manihot, by rasping and soaking in water till the starch is precipitated, which forms a white powder when dried in the sun. The Maranta arundinacea is the chief plant thus employed, but a spurious kind of arrowroot has been made from the root of the Cuckoo Pint. But of all foods in ordinary use among uncivilised peoples, the bread-fruit of South Sea Islands deserves especial notice ; this is the fruit of Artocarpus incisa, ' That tree which in unfailing stores The staff of life spontaneous pours, And to those southern islands yields The produce of our labour 'd fields.' The mode of cooking the bread-fruit is thus described in Murray's * Encyclopaedia of Geography : ' ' Sometimes the natives of a district assemble to prepare it in a .large and common oven, when it is called opio. This is done by digging a large pit, 20 or 30 feet round, and filling it with firewood and large stones, till the heat almost brings the latter to a state of liquefaction, when the covering is removed, and many hundreds of ripe bread-fruit are thrown in, with a few leaves laid over them ; the remaining hot stones are placed above them, and the whole covered D