The Forest Republican. [volume] (Tionesta, Pa.) 1869-1952, 1890-07-02
QUEER TROPICAL THINGS.
ASTOUNDING GIFTS OF NATURE IN
CENTRAL AMERICA.
A Returned Engineer Tells of Trees
That Give Bread and Milk and
Ants That Distil Honey.

"A Returned Engheer Tells OF Trees
That Give Bread and Milk and
Ants That Distil Honey.
"There are some funny things to be
met with in that region" said Major
Quincy A. Steele, who has been with an
engineer corps, surveying railroad routes
in Central America for the past two years,
"and among the funniest are tree that
gives a light so strong that you can read
or write by it at night, and one that gives
milk, and another that provides the way
farer with bread. Then thore is an ant
that supplies you with sweetening for
your coffee, which is an interesting native
of that queer country. The tree that
gives light isn't large one, but it isn't
inconspicuous by any means. The last
place we camped at in the mountains we
had particularly bright specimen of
this tree to work by. l could sit ten feet
away from it and read fine print as well
as if it had been broad daylight. As
soon as night comes the leaves of this
tree begin to shine as if they were so
many electric lights. Looking off across
country one can see scores of the trees
shining here and there in the darkness
like beacon lights set in the hills. They
make very choice article of rum from
the leaves of this treee by boiling them
down and letting the decoction stand in
the sun for day or two. The native In
dians are fond of this tipple, and at
least one of our Indian helpers and
guides is usually engaged in snoring off
the result of injudicious tampering with
this rum while 1T is triae new.
"The tree am speaking of doesn't
grow more than ten feet high, but three
of them would light up town. If you
rub the leaves smartly between your
hands, they will glow in the dark like
lightning bug. The Indians call this
tree the witch tree, and 1 don't blame
them. 1t gives the best light Just after
| it has been drenched with water, and so
if the tree begins to grow little dim on
us, all we have to do is to douse two. or
three pals of water over it, and it's Just
like giving lamp wick turn or two
higher. One of our party had big idea
of going home and organizing a company
to introduce and cultivate this tree in
towns and cities, and knock gas COM
panies and electric light plants higher
than kite; but when he found that the
tree stops giving light in August and
doesn't start up again until the next
March, he thought the scheme wouldn't
pay.
'The tree that gave the bread we used
to eat down there doesn't look bit rs if it
would do it. But looks are very decep-
tive under the Equator The bread isn't
exactly bread when we pick it, either
1t is a nice stiff dough enclosed in nut
shell about the size of a goose egg. We
crack the nut, take out the dough, knead
it little, and it is ready for baking.
BY thinning it down to a batter with the
milk we get from another tree, our camp
cook used to make first rate pancakes out
of it. The day l left he strained the
sweetening out of quart or two of ants,
mixed it up with batch Of the dough,
and made sweet cake that would have
been good enough for anybody's folks to
set before company.
"'The ants that supply the honey, or
syrup, or whatever it may be called, are
worth a days travel on mule back over
these mountains to see. They are about
the size of small peanut, and on their
back is a transparent sac that they distil
full of honey until they swell up as big
as good sized marble. You can scoop
these ants up by the neck They make
this honey to feed their young on, but
they are so good-natured and so sus-
ceptible to familiarity that all you have
to do is tickle them on the foreshoulder
and they will give you up every drop of
honey they have, and then go meekly off
to fill up again.
"But this accommodating ant isn't a
whit more curious than the tree that acts
in the capacity of dairy down there. This
tree has a big, tough, leathery leaf, that
can be used for half-soling shoes. When
we want to milk one of these COW trees
we bore hole in the trunk, and it lets
down a sap as white and as sweet as any
milk that was ever stripped from a cow.
To get sweet milk out of this tree,
though, it must be milked early in the
morning. After the sun has been up
two or three hours the tree gives sour
| milk "-NeiO York Sun,