Gumbo

“ The men had to cope with the swift current, bordered by a series of steep gumbo slides, where the tracking was hazardous; where great trees slanted over the water, tottering to their fall, or deep pits and fissures gaped in the festering clay, into which the men often plunged to their arm-pits. ”

“ BEEF GUMBO.—Put into a large stew-pan some pieces of the lean of fresh beef, cut up into small bits, and seasoned with a little pepper and salt. Add sliced ochras and tomatas, (either fresh, or dried ochras and tomata paste.) You may put in some sliced onions. Pour on water enough to cover it well. Let it boil slowly, [446] (skimming it well,) till every thing is reduced to rags. Then strain and press it through a cullender. Have ready a sufficiency of toasted bread, cut into dice. Lay it in the bottom of a tureen, and pour the strained gumbo upon it. ”

“ He said the world was full of blixxes and tibbens, and that he was going back into the woods where there wasn't any gumbos. It seems that blixxes and tibbens were people who ate with their hats on. A gumbo was a lady who put bluing into everything she washed on Monday, including her face. ”

“ The andirons are still doing service at the ranch of Howard Eaton and his brothers in Wolf, Wyoming. [Back to Main Text]
Footnote 11: "I never was bothered by gumbo in the Bad Lands. There wasn't a sufficient proportion of clay in the soil. But out on the prairie, oh, my martyred Aunt Jane's black and white striped cat!"—A. T. Packard. ”

“ It's a roaring good one: crawfish gumbo, riz biscuits, fresh butter, fried oysters, and coffee to make your hair curl. Go on, both of you. You've had—naturally enough—last day in the city—a few juleps too many, but that's all right. A square meal, a night's rest, and you'll wake up in the morning with Baton Rouge and all the sugar lands astern, the big cotton plantations on both sides of us, you feeling at home with everybody, everybody at home with you."
"Many thanks," sneered Julian. "We'll go to our meals self-invited. Good evening." ”

“ Under oaks and tropical bustics, poisonwood, mastics, and gumbo-limbos grow small trees such as tetrazygia, rough-leaf velvetseed, and wild coffee, a multitude of mosses and ferns, and only a few species of shade-tolerant flowering plants. Orchids and air plants burst like sun stars from limbs, trunks, and fallen logs. Twining among them all, the woody vines called lianas enhance the jungle atmosphere. ”

“ They sat at the pine table smoking and playing cards all the morning, only desisting when ‘Tite Reine came to serve them with the gumbo-filé that she had come out of the field to cook at noon. She could afford to treat a guest to chicken gumbo, for she owned a half dozen chickens that Uncle Mortimer had presented to her at various times. ”

“ For winter use it is salted or sliced and dried. The fruit is grown on a very large scale in the vicinity of Constantinople. It was one of the esculents of Egypt in the time of Abul-Abbas el-Nebāti, who journeyed to Alexandria in 1216 (Wüstenfeld, Gesch. d. arab. Ärzte, p. 118, Gött., 1840) , and is still cultivated by the Egyptians, who called it Bammgé.
The seeds of the gumbo are used as a substitute for coffee. From their demulcent and emollient properties, the leaves and immature fruit have long been in repute in the East for the preparation of poultices and fomentations. ”

“ Gumbo Limbo (Bursera simaruba) is a south Florida species and is known also as West Indian birch. It is in a family by itself with no near relative. It is not a birch. The wood is spongy and very light, weighing less than nineteen pounds per cubic foot. It decays with remarkable rapidity. Branches thrust in the ground take root and grow. An aromatic resin, exuding from wounds in the bark, is manufactured into varnish. The leaves are substituted for tea, and gout remedies are made from the resin. Large trees are fifty feet high and two feet or more in diameter. ”

“ They have not the plantain, good 21 baked, nor the avocado or alligator pear, which fried in butter or oil is so admirable. They have not the ochra, of which the negro cooks make such excellent gumbo soup. They have all the salads, and use sorrel much more than we do. They do not cook summer squash as we do, nor have they anything to equal it. They use vegetables always as an entrée, not served with the meat, unless the vegetable is cooked with the meat, like beef stewed in carrots, turnips, and onions, veal and green peas, veal with spinach, and so on. ”

“ He had run away so often that no attention was paid to it, for he always came back after a time.—They got the bloodhounds, mammy said, and went to the swamp. After a long time the dogs struck Gumbo's trail, and—yes, they found her,—tied hands and feet and her clothing torn to strings, in a kind of hut made of bark and brush way back in the swamp. She was dead, but she had not been dead an hour, from a gash in her head made by an axe. The dogs followed a hot scent from the hut for another hour, and led the men to where they had run Gumbo down. ”

“ While the watery world of Anhinga is dominated by a noisy profusion of wildlife, the environment of Gumbo Limbo will 31 seem to be a mere tangle of vegetation. But the jungle hammock, too, has its community of animals—even though you may notice none but mosquitoes. Many of its denizens are nocturnal in their habits, but if you remain alert you will observe birds, invertebrates, and perhaps a lizard. ”

“ Egg Plant, called Guinea Squash at the South, should be firm, hard, and rather under ripe, it also tastes somewhat like an oyster; the large, purple, oval shaped, is the better variety. Okra or Gumbo.—The green seed pods are much esteemed for soups and stews, especially in the South, and are growing in favor at the North. The long green variety is considered best. ”

“ It was freezing cold the following day when Boyton and Creelman resumed the voyage, and Paul knew the rest of the journey would be a race against the winter which was now following close. He paddled between gumbo hills all afternoon. These black masses are composed of a sticky substance which becomes quite slippery in wet weather. Not a blade of grass will grow upon them except here and there where the natural soil rises to the surface. Ducks and other wild fowl cowered in the niches or wherever they could gain a foot hold under the banks, to escape the keen wind. ”

“ The birds frequent weedy tangles in open grounds, showing special fondness for patches of the white bur-marigold, and seem to be well scattered over the country.
Day after day I walk down through the hammock (I have spoken of it before, and most likely shall do so again) between Miami and Cocoanut Grove. Indeed, so constant are my peregrinations thither that I begin to find my innocent self treated as a kind of mysterious personage—one of the “features” of the place, [107] so to speak, an “object of interest,” like the gumbo-limbos, the air-plants, and the blossoming lime trees. ”

“ The peaks were broken and conical in form, and their pale-violet hue showed with fine effect behind the dark line of the gum forests. With every hour of our progress, the vegetation grew more rank and luxuriant. On the eastern bank the gum gave place to the flowering mimosa, which rose in a dense rampart from the water’s edge and filled the air with the fragrance of its blossoms. Myriads of wild geese, ducks, cranes, storks, herons and ibises sat on the narrow beaches of sand or circled in the air with hoarse clang and croaking. ”

“ Any one who has ever paid a flying visit to New Orleans probably knows something about those various culinary preparations whose generic name is "Gombo"—compounded of many odds and ends, with the okra-plant, or true gombo for a basis, but also comprising occasionally "losé, zepinard, laitie," and the other vegetables sold in bunches in the French market. ”

“ He is intelligent, active, and obliging; always busy: now twisting fishing-lines of the fibres of a palm called chambira; now hunting turtle-eggs, robbing plantain-fields, or making me cigars of tobacco-leaves given me by the priest of Chasuta. Every beach is a house for him; his peons build his rancho and spread his musquito curtain; his wife and child cook his supper. His mess of salt fish, turtle-eggs, and plantains is a feast for him; and his gourd of coffee, and pipe afterwards, a luxury that a king might envy. He is always well and happy. ”

“ The back is divided into four panels by silver guimp, each containing a flower worked in tapestry-stitch, a blue flower, a wild rose, a pansy, and a thistle. The ground of the whole is loosely overcast with silver thread, the constructive lines of the book being marked by rows of silver guimp arranged in small arches. The edges are bound by a strong silver braid. The head and tail bands are worked in silver thread—an unusual method—and the edges are gilt and gauffred. ”

“ The Indians on this river have in their houses cotton, maize, ground peas, (mani,) sweet potatoes, yuccas, plantains, fowls and fish, bows and arrows, lances, clubs, paddles, and pretty baskets made of cane. The women weave their own clothes, and those of their husbands, and manage to paint figures and devices on the cotton after it is woven. The Pirros and Conibos seem taller than they really are, on account of their costume, which is a long cotton gown. I have seen a fellow in one of these gowns, slowly striding over a beach, look, at a distance, like a Roman patrician in his "toga." ”

“ There are a great number of large pigeons feeding on these plains; the young are full-grown, very fat, and form a good substitute for miserable beef.
The Indians carry their loads of plantains, yuca, and wood, on the crotches of two limbs. The single sticks made fast to the yoke of oxen, secured on each side to the horns, while the two prongs slide on the ground behind. Sometimes they secure a large square box or basket on the crotches, and let the children ride in this Mojos carriage. The 260 sugar-cane is generally planted on the side of the river and carried in canoes. ”

“ There was also on the banks of the river some gombo, tobacco, and giraumons. I was told that in the rainy season they grow cabbage, carrots, and European turnips, the seed of which is brought from Tafilet. In the marshes is found a kind of forage, which is cut and dried for the cattle. In places not exposed to the inundation they cultivate only millet and maize. The town of Jenné is full of bustle and animation; every day numerous caravans of merchants are arriving and departing with all kinds of useful productions. ”

“ When is Gambo coming? How near is he on the road? Have the elephants or gorillas destroyed the plantation of plantain-trees where they have gone? Such were the questions we asked ourselves. People can not live on fish and meat alone. That evening we fed on boar’s meat, thankful for having been so successful.
The next morning the voice, or rather the peculiar whistle agreed upon outside, told us that Gambo had come. I was the first to peep my head above the fence, when I saw friend Gambo and Njali and Nola loaded with plantain and cassada, and we gave them a grand hurrah of welcome. ”

“ The doves and pigeons coo among the trees and bushes, while the turkey-buzzard soars over the tops of the small hills about us.
The road is narrow but level. On one hand we have the maize ready for the reaper; while, on the other, it is just peeping out of the ground; further on, in one field, the Indians are planting corn, and others are gathering their crop. Barley and wheat produce large heads and rich grains; beans seem to be favorites. Old hens run through the corn-patches with their families, while Spanish cocks square off before us in the road for a fight. ”

“ A wild turkey, cut up and well boiled with rice, seasoned with a small quantity of ajé, a lump of Potosi salt scraped with it, was most refreshing after a hard day’s travel. The greatest favor to a traveller met on the road in the forest, is to present him with a biscuit. The patron who shares his bread with the men will always get through. The arrieros generally carry a bag of roasted or parched corn. It is amusing to see them luxuriating on the hind leg of a ring-tailed monkey, taken alternately with a grain of parched corn. ”

“ The initials C. R. in gold guimp are at each side. The circle is enclosed in a strong framework of silver cord and guimp in the form of four thin long pointed ovals of leaf form arranged as a diamond. The four triangular spaces between the diamond and the oval are filled with small flowers or small pieces of guimp and spangles. Towards each corner grows a flower, two pansies, and two others with regular petals. The remaining spaces are filled variously with green leaves, small patches of purl and gold spangles, and a strong gold cord encloses the whole. ”

“ To one who loves “the cool sequestered haunts of Nature,” no spot could be more charming, nothing more inspiring than to recline under the venerable shade of some wide-branched guamo uplooking to the many-tinted{282} clouds as they sweep in solemn majesty beneath the blue veil of heaven, and seem to melt into the tree tops in the distance—trees whose gigantic height and size, wall with magnificent vegetation the steep banks rising on either side of the river, mirrored in its tranquil surface. ”

“ Apropos of the latter, it is not only one of the most singular members of the vegetable world in the Indian islands, but adapted to such a variety of uses, that my readers may fairly excuse me for giving them a description of it.
The gomuti (Borassus gomutus) is the thickest of all the palms, but shorter than the cocoa-nut. The fruits, which are about the size of a medlar, and of a triangular form, grow from the shoots of fructification on long strings of three or four feet, and that, too, in such abundance, that the quantity depending from a single shoot is more than a load for a man. ”