

BOTANY. 377 



fatigue and thirst under a tropical sun. One of the 

 three depressions, or //, that occupy one extremity 

 of the nut, is always softer than the others, and can 

 be easily perforated, to obtain access to the fluid within. 

 The Society Islanders call this palm hadri ;* but have 

 several names for the fruit, to express its different 

 stages of maturity. The nut is called opaa when it is 

 sufficiently ripe to possess a hard oily kernel, and when 

 the investing husk is brown, dry, and composed of the 

 short rigid fibres known to commerce by the name of 

 koya. In this stage of growth it is cliiefly used to 

 make cocoa-nut oil : the scraped kernel being heaped 

 up in a wooden trough, and subjected to putrefactive 

 fermentation until the oil exudes. None of the Poly- 

 nesian nations we visited, have any notion of preparing 

 toddy, arrack, vinegar, or toddy-sugar, (jagery}> from 

 the sap of the tree, as is practised in the East Indies. 

 They use the leaves for the manufacture of shades, to 

 protect their face from the sun, baskets to carry 

 provisions, and fences for the sides of their huts, the 

 leaflets being platted neatly and closely while they 

 remain attached to the stipe. The strong fibrous sheath, 

 or permanent stipule, which supports each ponderous 

 leaf at its attachment to the trunk, is called aa by the 

 Society Islanders, and is used for making bags, sails 

 for canoes, and a kind of sea-clothing for the fisher- 

 men. It is a broad elastic structure, composed of tough 

 brown fibres, crossing, and partly interlacing each other, 

 presenting so much the appearance of a coarse woven 

 cloth, that if man were not the unaided inventor of 

 weaving, we might suppose him to be the imitator of 

 this natural fabric. A section of the young nut-shell, 



* The ancient Tahitian, and present Hawaiian name for the species is 

 niftu. 



