INDIGO, MANGO, GUAVA, DURIAN
"If you will remain in our sunnier Philippines, I'll tell you about
plants and flowers and fruits, that you have never even heard about,"
said sunny little Filippa, who herself was as beautiful as a flower,
and as soft to touch as a fruit.
"Tell about our indigo," suggested her brother Fil.
Filippa looked very wise, pointed to her indigo skirt, and continued:
"You get your dyes from the benzene of coal tar, but they do
not stand washing or sunlight, as well as our bright and strong
vegetable dyes. We take our indigo plant, and steep the leaves in
water for twelve hours, in a stone tank. Then Fil drains off the
yellow liquor. This soon turns green. Then blue sediment settles in
Nature's wonderful chemical way, under the strong sunlight. We drain
off the water, and cut the indigo cakes into cubes."
"Very well told," remarked Filippa's mother. "This is a dye which
will not fade. It lasts as long as the gown. Now, Moro, I would like
you to tell about mangoes and guavas and durians; for you are always
eating them."
Moro laughed, and began to throw sticks up into a tall tree.
"What are you doing? Why don't you answer?" I inquired.
"I'm trying to knock down a custard, one foot long and half a foot
deep," he replied.
"Such nonsense. Custards in my country are made out of eggs and are
baked in ovens," I said.
"Not this better kind," replied Moro, who brought down a huge fruit,
all covered with sharp spurs and spikes, sharper and harder than
rose-thorns.
"Nature has kept her rich custard guarded by spikes and by an awful
odor," remarked Fil's father, as he broke open the thick skin with
an ax.
"But it's worth the trouble," said Moro, who pointed out the heart
of the fruit, which truly was one solid, delicious natural custard,
one foot long,--enough for a whole Filipino family.
"The monkeys know how to open the spiked fruit better than you do,"
said Fil. "They throw them from the high branches. The fruit breaks
open on the ground. Then the wild monkeys race down the tree, and
eat up the custard durian. Who said that a monkey does not think?"
Everybody laughed at this odd but true tale of the remarkable
Philippines.
"I know something about guava, for I eat guava jelly with my turkey
and venison at home, but I never knew that it came from the far-away
Philippine Islands. Is it a root or a seed?" I inquired.
"Oh, no!" replied Moro. "It's a fruit taken from that low tree
over there. The flowers are white. The fruit, shaped like a pear,
is yellow."
"What makes the delightful jelly red?" I inquired.
"Perhaps the cooking, or the sugar that is added," suggested Fil's
mother.
"You have not yet told about mangoes. Please hand our friend one,"
said Filippa.
Moro climbed up and up a dizzy height, into an evergreen tree sixty
feet high. He brought down in his pockets, several fruits as large
as cucumbers, only the colors were red and yellow.
"Eat one. They are the most delicious and juicy fruit known in the
whole world,--just like wine," said Moro.
I bit eagerly into one, and at once threw it far away. Everybody
laughed at my strange action.
"Why, it's turpentine; it's paint," I said. "I didn't think you'd do
this to me, Moro."
"Swallow it anyway. That turpentine smell lasts only a second,"
explained Filippa.
I tried another mango, and found it to be the juiciest and sweetest
fruit that I ever ate, dripping wine, full of refreshment in a hot
climate, food and drink and medicine in one.
"What do you do with its large seed, as hard as iron?" I inquired.
"I'll show you," replied Moro.
The bright boy at once lighted a fire, and roasted the hard seed
in the ashes. Then he brushed and washed it clean; and handed it to
me, when it became somewhat cool, saying: "Eat it too; it is really
chocolate toast now."
And such I found it to be.
"Your mango then is a whole breakfast,--toast, drink, and fruit,"
I said.