300 STUDIES OF NATURE. 



The part comprehended between two of it's joints 

 is fufficient to bear a man up on the water. The 

 Indian places himfelf upon it a-ftraddle, and fo 

 crofles a river, fwimming along by the motion of 

 his feet. The Dutch Navigator, John Hugo de 

 Linfchoiten, an author of reputation, allures us that 

 the crocodile never touches perfons who are paf- 

 fing rivers in this manner, though he frequently 

 attacks canoes, and even the boats of Europeans. 

 Linjchotten afcribes the abftinence of this voracious 

 animal to an antipathy which he has to that fpe- 

 cies of reed. 



Francis Pyrard, another traveller, who' has ob- 

 ferved Nature with a careful eye, informs us, that 

 there grows, on the fhores of the Maldivia Iilands, 

 a tree called candou, the wood of which is fo light, 

 that it ferves as cork for the filhermen *. I think 

 I was once polTeffed of a log of wood of that fpe- 

 cies. It was ftripped of the bark, perfectly white, 

 of the thicknefs of my arm, about fix feet long, 

 and fo light, that I could eafily lift it by my finger 

 and thumb. In thefe fame iflands, and on the 

 fame flrands, rifes the cocoa- tree, which there at- 

 tains a higher degree of beauty than any where elfe 

 in the World. Thus, the tree of all others mod 

 ufeful to mariners, grows on the fhores of the Seas 



* See Pj/wd's Voyage to the Maldivia Iflands, page 38. 



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