more to ripen; good stocks produce three and more bunches a year,
each weighing from twenty to eighty pounds. The stem, after
fruiting, should be cut down, in order to let the others enjoy
light and air, and the oftener the plants are removed to fresh
ground the better.

The banana, when unripe, is white and insipid; it is then baked
under ashes till it takes a golden colour, and, like a cereal, it
can be eaten as bread. A little later it is boiled, and becomes a
fair vegetable, tasting somewhat like chestnuts, and certainly
better than carrots or turnips. Lastly, when softer than a pear,
it is a fruit eaten with milk or made into beignets. I have
described the plantain-cider in "Lake Regions of Central Africa"
(ii. 287). The fruit contains sugar, gum, and acids (malic and
gallic); the rind, which is easily detached when ripe, stains
cloth with ruddy grey rusty colour, by its tannin, gallic, and
acetic acids.

The Baraka Mission has had several out-stations. One was at a
ruined village of Fan, which we shall presently pass on the right
bank of the river. The second was at Ikoi, a hamlet distant about
fifteen (not twenty-five) miles, upon a creek of the same name,
which enters the Gaboon behind Point Ovindo, and almost opposite
Konig Island. A third is at Anenge-nenge, vulgo Inenge-nenge,--
"nenge" in Mpongwe, and anenge in Bakele, meaning island,--
situated forty (not 100) miles up the main stream; here a native
teacher still resides. The Baraka school now (1862) numbers
thirty scholars, and there are twelve to fifteen communicants.
The missionaries are our white "labourers;" but two of them, the
Revs. Jacob Best and A. Bushnell, are absent in the United States