Note 18 — Chapter II · TRINIDAD AND THE ORINOCO

Near this interesting young couple, both in the heyday of youth, lay a cluster of plantains, which was doubtless to contribute to their morning repast. But what a coincidence that, even in this trifling circumstance, we should find an additional reminder of the Earthly Paradise! Have not men of science named the plantain Musa Paradisaica, in allusion to the tradition, which has long obtained, that it was the plantain, and not the apple, that was the forbidden fruit in Eden?18 It was there to fill out the picture as an artist in the tropics would wish to see it painted.