The plantain of the East, or banana of the West, grows to perfection in Burmah; those of Bengal are vastly inferior, while those grown under glass in this country are sickly exotics, forming but a very poor substitute for that which they pretend to be.
The Jack-fruit did not commend itself to the palate of Europeans: in smell and taste it closely resembles the _durian_, which abounds in the Malay Archipelago. The taste of both resembles that of the Jargonelle pear; and both, strange to say, smell like rotten eggs.
There was a perfect forest of Jack-fruit trees extending many miles to the west of the stockade. This was a favourite resort, both on account of its numerous shady groves, in which the pine-apple grew in wild luxuriance, and by reason of the number and variety of birds, reptiles, insects, etc., which it afforded to the observant naturalist.
To ride or walk there required, however, some degree of caution. Below lurked scorpions and snakes; above, running along the branches, were numbers of very large and fierce black ants, furnished with formidable nippers, which they did not hesitate to use most effectually whenever they chanced to alight on the nape of one’s neck.
The fruit of these trees sometimes attains to an enormous size; one suspended at either extremity of a bamboo being as much as a strong man could carry.
Another creature that abounded in these forests was the kalong, or flying fox, a large bat, which sleeps the whole day, hanging head downwards from the branches, to which it clings with hooked claws.
Nothing could, perhaps, be more marked than the differences, both physical and mental, that exist between the Burmese and the Hindoos and Mohammedans of India. They have not a single feature in common—customs, religion, ways of thinking are equally different. Burmah, as it was—for I know not how far the conquering hand may have altered the spirit of its dream since I knew it—was infinitely preferable. The pages of history furnish us with proofs as abundant as they are sad, that no nation can advance as long as the hand of the conqueror weighs it down; there may be a spasmodic and artificial progress, but in reality the conquered races recede, since there is in the East no possibility of their absorbing and assimilating their conquerors, as did the Greeks and Saxons of old, which is the only chance of their deriving lasting benefit from the victors.