VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS. 685 



but after a few hours they collapse and assume the appearance 

 of a bat's wing half closed. The lip is furnished near its base 

 with a yellow cup, over which hang two horns constantly 

 distilling water into it, and in such abundance as to fill it 

 several times. This cup communicates by a narrow channel, 

 formed of the inflated margin of the lip, with the upper end 

 of the latter ; and this also has a capacious vessel, very much 

 like an old helmet, into which the licjuid that the cup cannot 

 contain runs over. 



The cockarito-palm — as it is familiarly called here — grows to 

 the height of fifty feet, and produces the most^delicate cabbage 

 of the palm species. It is enclosed in a husk in the very 

 heart of the tree, at its summit. This husk is peeled off in 

 strata until the white cabbage appears in long thin flakes — 

 in taste like the kernel of a nut. The inner part is often used 

 as a salad, while the outer is boiled, and considered superior 

 to the European cabbage. Within such cabbages as are in a 

 state of decay, a maggot is found — the larva of a black beetle 

 (urculio), which, growing to the length of four inches, and as 

 thick as a man's thumb, is called " grogTO." This creature, 

 disgusting as it is in appearance, when dressed is considered 

 a great delicacy — partaking of the flavour of all the spices of 

 the East. 



A curious shrub — if it can be so called — known as the 

 troolies, consists of large leaves twenty feet long and two 

 broad, of a stron^c texture, and straiuht fibres m-ow^UiX from a 

 small fibrous root ; the leaves risino* from the ends of the eiiiht 

 or ten stems wdiich it puts forth. These leaves are employed 

 chiefly for covering the roofs of buildings. 



From the silk-cotton tree, which grows to tlie height of one 

 hundred feet, and is twelve or fourteen in diameter, the Indians 



