At The End Of Each Foot-Stalk Is A Leaf
About The Size Of A Great Cabbage-Leaf, Snipt Half Round Like A
Sword-Grass.
From the tops of this plant, among the leaves, there spring
out many woody branches, as thick set with fruit as they can stand,
sometimes forty of them clustering together on one branch.
These are
about the size of a great katharine pear; at the first greenish, and
shaped almost like a sheep's bell, with a smooth rind flat at top;
within which rind is a hard substance almost like a cocoa-nut shell, and
within that is a white round hollow kernel of a gristly consistence, yet
eatable, and in the central hollow about a spoonful of cool sweet
liquor, like cocoa-nut milk. There is another tree, as big as a
pear-tree, thick set with boughs and leaves resembling those of the bay,
bearing a large globular fruit like a great foot-ball, hanging by a
strong stalk; The rind is divided by seams into four quarters, and being
cut green, yields a clammy substance like turpentine. The rind is very
thick, consisting of divers, layers of a brown substance like agaric,
but harder, and contains thirteen cells, in each of which is contained a
large kernel of a dirty white colour, hard, bitter, and ill tasted.
In Socotora[213] the natives of Guzerat and the English build themselves
slight stone-houses, with pieces of wood laid across and covered with
reeds and branches of the date palm, merely to keep out the sun, as they
fear no rain during the season of residing here.
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