278 FLORA VITIENSIS. 
Doum (Phenix dactylifera and Hyphena Thebaica), both of which are disposed of by the writer in the 
‘Parthenon.’ But there is a Palm in Nubia, and probably also in Upper Egypt, the Deleb (Borassus 
zEthiopum, Mart.), which has a fruit quite as large as some of the middle-sized kinds of Cocoa-nut, and the 
ventricose trunk of which has evidently been the prototype of the columns seen in Egyptian temples; the 
Date-palm, from which the capitals were copied (as is evident in the great temple of Edfou), having no such 
swelling in the trunk. There is a considerable quantity of water in the fruit of the Deleb-palm ; and as its 
height also agrees with that mentioned in the apostrophe, the balance of evidence would rather seem in 
favour of this tree as that meant by the Mama-en-khanent. This same Palm has already been mistaken for 
the Cocoa-nut tree; it is the Palm of Timbuctoo, which Humboldt, misguided by erroneous information, 
thought to be Cocos nucifera, until, in a paper read before the Linnean Society, I showed it to be Borassus 
ZEthiopum. 
The oil of the Cocoa-nut Palm, or Niu dina, has long been one of the articles of export from Viti ; 
nevertheless, it is difficult to arrive at any definite result about the average annual quantity shipped. The 
Wesleyan mission, in negotiating with an island trader for the transport of the oil received from the natives 
as contributions to its funds, were ready to guarantee that at least sixty tuns should pass through his 
hands. This, at the rate of £20 per tun, the average value of the oil on the spot, would give £1200 per 
annum—a sum tolerably well agreeing with that usually advertised on the wrapper of the ‘ Wesleyan Mis- 
sionary Notices’ as the Fijian share towards the support of the Society. Exact data for forming an opinion 
of the quantity shipped by the actual traders are altogether wanting. ‘On consulting with several about this 
subject, they pretty nearly all agreed in fixing three hundred tuns as the utmost limit of the annual export 
of the whole group,=£6000 on the spot. Hitherto, there has been great waste in the making of oil, the 
native process being of a primitive description. To remedy this evil, Captain Wilson and M. Joubert, of 
Sydney, set up proper machinery on their estate at Somosomo, after one of the partners had familia- 
rized himself with the latest improvement in that branch of industry in Ceylon. Cocoa-nut oil congealing 
at a temperature of about 72° Fahr., and the thermometer during the cool months often falling below that 
degree, a proper amount of warmth must be kept up whilst the operation of pressing the pulverized kernels 
is going on, in order to extract the largest quantity of oil from the least number of nuts. Wilkes, upon the 
authority of one of the scientific men attached to his expedition, states that there were only two varieties of 
Cocoa-nut, a green and a brown. Closer attention to the subject would have shown this to be a mistake ; 
not only the colour, but also the average size and shape of the fruits, the height of the trees, and the 
insertion of the leaflets, or rather segments, offer marks of distinction between the numerous varieties with 
which the islands are studded. The most striking kind is the one having fruits not much larger than a 
turkey's egg, and bearing more than a hundred of them in each bunch. Several trees were noticed at Kadavu, 
about Yarabale, a narrow isthmus, where canoes are dragged across from sea to sea. The curious pheno- 
menon of a Cocoa-nut Palm becoming branched by the division of the trunk, has occasionally been witnessed 
in Fiji; and two interesting instances of it are given in Williams's * Fiji and the Fijians, where one of the 
trees is described with five branches. In Samoa Mr. W. Pritchard saw a tree with two heads, regarded with 
just pride by the natives who possessed it, and cut down during a war by their enemies. As in other parts of 
Polynesia, the trunk is made into small canoes, or supplies materials for building and feneing; stockades of 
it are impenetrable to bullets. The leaves are made into different kinds of mats and baskets; yam-houses 
are occasionally thatehed with them, but these roofs do not last much longer than a year. The spathe 
enclosing the flowers is used for torches; the fibres surrounding the nut are made into * sinnet," used for 
fastenings of all kinds. The young flesh is delicious eating, and the “water” contained in the nuts a 
refreshing drink, which, as the fruit advances, undergoes a gradual change, for all of which there are distinctive 
names. New-comers soon fix upon a certain stage most agreeable to their palate, and on indieating it to 
the natives they will readily pick it out by knocking with their fingers on the outside of either the husked 
or the unhusked nut, and be guided by the sound. This process requires long practice, and, though trying 
hard, I did not succeed in learning at least the sound of that stage I preferred to others. The ripe nuts 
are grated and used for puddings, or given to fowls and pigs. Some persons have a predilection for nuts 
when just in the act of germinating—a taste which the Asiatic shares in eating the young Palmyras, and 
the African the seedlings of the Borassus ? ZEthiopum, Mart. It is to be regretted that so few plantations 
of Cocoa-nut trees are formed by white settlers. The annual value of a fruit-producing tree is never less 
than one dollar; and how easily might 10,000 nuts be set in the ground, and the value of an estate be 
permanently raised! Every part of the smaller islands and the sea-borders of the larger are localities 
suitable for this purpose. Only Bau, Viwa, and the distriets adjacent, form an exception: the trees, as 
soon as they have reached a certain height, become diseased; their leaves look as if dipped in boiling 
water, and their fruits are few in number, poor, and often drop off before they arrive at maturity ; a thick 
layer of marl, forming the subsoil of those districts, seeming to oppose that ready drainage which the Cocoa-nut 
tree requires, and which it enjoys in so eminent a degree on tbe white beaches of sand and decomposed 
corals. 
