STUDY XI. I93 



thought that Flora, purfued by Tome River-god, 

 had dropped her bafket in the urn of that deity. 

 Others, more fortunate, ifTuing from the fources 

 of fome dream, are caught by the current of the 

 greater rivers, and conveyed away to embellifh. 

 their diftant banks with a verdure not their own. 



There are fome which crofs the vafl Ocean ; 

 and, after a long navigation, are driven, by the 

 very tempers, on the regions which they adorn 

 and enrich. Such are the double cocoas of the 

 Sechelles, or Mahé Iflands, which the Sea carries 

 regularly every year a diftance of four hundred 

 leagues, and lands them on the coaft of Malabar. 

 The Indians, who inhabit it, were long under the 

 perfuafion, that thofe annual prefents of the Ocean 

 mud have been the produce of a palm-tree that 

 grew under it's billows. They gave them the 

 name of marine cocoa-nuts ; and afcribed wonder- 

 ful virtues to them. They fet as high a value 

 upon them as upon ambergris; and to fuch a 

 pitch was this extravagance carried, that many of 

 thofe fruits have been fold as high as a thoufand 

 crowns a piece. But the French having, fome 

 years ago, difcovered the Ifland of Mahé, which 

 produces them, and which is fituated in the fif- 

 tieth degree of South- Latitude, imported them in 

 fuch quantities to India, that they funk at once in 

 value and in reputation ; for men, in every coun- 



vol. in. o try, 



