In The Middle Of Each
Leaf Rises A Stalk Like That Of A Bean, Which Produces Flowers Followed
By Fruit A Span Long, And As Thick As A Mans Arm.
These fruits are
gathered unripe, as they become ripe in keeping.
Every slip bears about
two hundred fruits in a cluster. They are of a yellow colour with a very
thin skin, and are most delicate eating, and very wholesome. There are
three kinds of this fruit, one of which is not so pleasant or so much
esteemed as the others. This tree bears fruit only once and then dies;
but there rise from the ground all about the root fifty or sixty young
slips which renew the life of the parent tree. The gardeners transplant
these to other places, and in one year they produce fruit This fruit is
to be had in great abundance, almost the whole year, and are so cheap
that twenty of them may be had for a penny. This country produces
innumerable flowers of great beauty and most pleasant flavour, all the
year round, and especially roses, both red, white, and yellow.
The cocoa is another tree most worthy of being known, as in fruitfulness
and sweetness of fruit it surpasses all other trees. Its fruit is a nut
of large size; and taken altogether, this tree produces ten different
commodities of value: as it produces wood most excellent for burning,
nuts very pleasant to eat, cords or ropes that answer well for ships,
fine cloth, which when dyed resembles silk. The wood is the best that
can be found for making charcoal, and it yields wine, odoriferous water,
sugar, and oil. The boughs or leaves serve to cover houses, instead of
tiles or thatch, as, by reason of their closeness and substance, they
keep out the rain admirably. One tree will produce about two hundred
large nuts. The outer rhind of these nuts is removed, and thrown into
the fire, where it burns quickly and with a strong flame. The inner
rhind is like cotton or flax, and can be wrought in the same manner.
From the finer part of this, a kind of cloth is made resembling silk;
and from the tow, or refuse, they make a coarser cloth, or small ropes
and twine; while the coarsest parts are made into cables and large ropes
for ships. The inner hard shell of the nut incloses the kernel, which is
excellent eating, and lines the shell to the thickness of an inch or
less. Within this is found to the quantity of two or three cups of sweet
water, which is excellent to drink, and which, by boiling, produces good
oil. Only one side of the tree is allowed to produce fruit, as they
wound the other side every morning and evening in several places, whence
a juice or sap runs out into vessels placed to receive it. Thus they
procure at each wound, every night and morning, a cupful of most
precious liquor, which sometimes they boil till it becomes strong as
brandy, so as to make people drunk like strong wine, which it resembles
in taste and flavour. They likewise procure sugar from this tree, but
not very sweet. This tree produces fruit continually, as at all times
there are to be seen upon it both old ripe fruit of the past season, and
green fruit of the present year. It does not begin bearing till five
years old, and only lives for twenty five years. It thrives best in
sandy ground, and is planted or set out like our walnuts; and is so much
valued, that it is to be found all over the country for at least two
hundred miles. This country also produces other fruits, from which they
make good oil.
For the cultivation of rice they till the ground with oxen as we do, and
at the season for sowing they have a holiday, on which they testify
their joy by singing and dancing to the sound of all kinds of
instruments of music. To ensure, as they conceive, a favourable produce,
ten men are disguised like so many devils, who dance to the noise of
their music; and after the festivities of the day, they pray to the
devils to send them a plentiful crop.
When any merchant of these idolaters is sore afflicted with disease and
near death, then certain persons who are accounted physicians among them
ore called to visit the person in extremity. These persons accordingly
come to his house in the dead of night, dressed like devils, and
carrying burning sticks in their mouth and hands. And there, with mad
cries and boilings, and with the jangling of certain instruments, they
make such a horrible noise in the ears of the sick man, as is enough to
make a healthy man sick. This is the only remedy these pretended
physicians offer to their sick persons, being merely to present to him
when at the point of death the resemblance of him whom, worse than
devils, they honour as the vicegerent of the deity. When any one hath so
engorged himself with eating as to be sick at stomach, he takes the
powder of ginger, mixed in some liquid to the consistence of syrup,
which he drinks, and in three days he recovers his former health.
Their bankers, brokers, and money-changers use weights and scales of
such small size, that the box containing the whole does not exceed an
ounce in weight, yet are they so delicate and just that they will turn
with the weight of a hair. For trying the parity of gold, they use the
touch-stone as with us, but with this addition: having first rubbed the
gold to be tried on the touch-stone, they rub over the mark with a ball
of some sort of composition resembling wax, by which all that is not
fine gold disappears, and the marks or spots of gold remain, by which
they have an exact proof of the fineness of the gold.
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