*28 The Peruvians were well
acquainted with the different modes of preparing this useful
vegetable, though it seems they did not use it for bread, except
at festivals; and they extracted a sort of honey from the stalk,
and made an intoxicating liquor from the fermented grain, to
which, like the Aztecs, they were immoderately addicted. *29
[Footnote 27: The prolific properties of the banana are shown by
M. de Humboldt, who states that its productiveness, as compared
with that of wheat, is as 133 to 1, and with that of the potato,
as 44 to 1. (Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle
Espagne, Paris, 1827, tom. II. p. 389.) It is a mistake to
suppose that this plant was not indigenous to South America. The
banana-leaf has been frequently found in ancient Peruvian tombs.]
[Footnote 28: The misnomer of ble de Turquie shows the popular
error. Yet the rapidity of its diffusion through Europe and
Asia, after the discovery of America, is of itself sufficient to
show that it could not have been indigenous to the Old World, and
have so long remained generally unknown there.]
[Footnote 29: Acosta, lib. 4, cap. 16.
The saccharine matter contained in the maize-stalk is much
greater in tropical countries than in more northern latitudes; so
that the natives in the former may be seen sometimes sucking it
like the sugarcane. One kind of the fermented liquors, sora,
made from the corn, was of such strength, that the use of it was
forbidden by the Incas, at least to the common people.
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