The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-02
MANGoEs IN CUBA.

Why Our Soldiers in the Island Were
 Forbidden to Eat the Fruit.
 In the long list of suggestions from the medical department, all of which were disregarded, the ripe mango was recommended as desirable article of diet, But somebody at headquarters issued an edict against it, and the sol- diers were called up by the company commanders and told that if they ate the fruit they would be punished. This is the way the company commanders addressed their mem
 Now, I see that some of you have been eating those mangoes in spite of our advice to the contrary. Do you know what the Cubans call this fruit :? They call it General Mango. because they say that the mango has killed more Spanish soldiers than all of their generals put together. If you eat it General Mango will kill you, just as it has killed the Spaniards. I am told on good authority that if you eat a mango every day and then get yellow fever you will swell up frightfully and surely die. Now, I give you this positive or der, that not one of you shall eat any of this fruit, and I shall punish severely any man that disobeys the order.'
 After such an order the obedient reg ulars generally let the mangoes alone, although they were abundant, tempting and delicious. The volunteers ate them more freely, without any bad result, so far as heard from. When the Cuban officers and aides were asked their opin- ion as to the wholesomeness of the fruit they generally said: Tt is perfectly wholesome if eaten ripe; all these bad things apply to the unripe mango which is sometimes eaten by the Spaniards. " Most of the army doctors seemed to think that the only way to prevent the eating of the unripe mango was to pro- hibit the fruit altogether. There were many cases in which even the most obedient regulars were impelled by thirst and by the hunger for a bit of fruit to disobey the order; and, as the clear yellow mango is always ripe, while the unripe fruit is green or greenish, it did not take a very high order of intel ligence to discriminate between the fruit which was fit to eat and that which was unfit.
 It is certainly hard to believe any i'll of mango when one looks at it. The tree itself is a most beautiful and at- tractive thing. Imagine a tree as large as a big Massachusetts oak, covered with rich and glossy foliage finer than that of the orange tree, and covered also with golden fruit nestling brilliant ly among the green leaves. On such a tree there must often be a hundred bar rels of mangoes, fully matured, every one of which is as large as good-sized pear. In shape the mango is not unlike a short and thick cucumber, and it has thin, tough skin, which, when matur- ed, reveals mass of the most delicious juicy pulp.
 The only trouble about eating the mango is that one needs an ablution afterward Some say that the ideal way is to get into a bathtub, take the mango, eat it and then go on with the bath. But one is perfectly willing to take the trouble to seek the ablution for the sake of the fruit And imagine the trees which bear the fruit growing wild everywhere, and also spring up in every garden and dooryard; the largest and finest ones were away up on a wild mountain side, where apparently no one