Method of preparing the Fruit of the Screw -pine. 65 



work, composed of sjiindle-sliapcd staves. Many of these roots 

 do not reach the soil, and in this undeveloped state these 

 atmospheric roots assume the most peculiar shapes. Higher 

 up the same formation is repeated among the branches, from 

 which depend beautiful massy fruit-cones, a foot and a half 

 in length, by one in thickness, which, when ripe, are of a 

 splendid orange hue. 



The screw-pine is not cultivated in the Nicobar Islands ; it 

 grows wild in the utmost luxuriance, and, after the cocoa-nut, 

 is for the natives the most important plant that furnishes them 

 with subsistence. The immense fruit-cones borne by this 

 tree consist of several single wedge-shaped fruits, which 

 when raw are uneatable, but boiled in water, and subjected 

 to pressure, give out a sort of mealy mass, the '^ Melori" of 

 the Portuguese, and called by the natives '' Larohm," which is 

 also occasionally used with the fleshy interior of the ripe fruit, 

 and forms the daily bread of the islanders. The flavour of the 

 mass thus prepared strongly resembles that of apple-marma- 

 lade, and is by no means unpalatable to Europeans. The 

 woody, brush-like fibres of the fruit which remain behind, 

 after the mealy contents have been squeezed out, are made 

 use of by the natives as natural brooms and brushes, while 

 the dried leaves of the Pandanus serve instead of paper to 

 surround their cigarettes. 



At Pulo Milii, as is yet more markedly the case among 

 the southernmost islands, the cocoa- palm does not grow so 

 luxuriantly as on Kar-Nicobar, and to this circumstance may 



VOL. II. F 



