CEYLON. 171 



the treelike branches form a wide-spreading crown. 

 This tree is worshipped and is held in great veneration 

 by the Buddhists. A very strange tree is what is 

 known as the jack tree, a large tree which bears the 

 largest edible fruit known. The fruit is suspended 

 from the trunk and the larger branches by a short stalk, 

 and in several instances it sprouts from exposed roots. 

 The edible part of the fruit is a yellow pulpy viscid 

 mass. The smell and taste of the fruit when ripe are 

 strong, and to the European unpleasant, but the flavor 

 is akin to that of our may apple and quite agreeable, at 

 least it proved so to me. The elephant is very fond of 

 the leaves of this tree. The Areca palm, a very slender 

 tree, grows a nut which bears in its structure a close 

 resemblance to the nutmeg. This nut, scraped and 

 mixed with a white paste made of slacked lime, served 

 on a green leaf, is the betel so much in use by the na- 

 tives as a chewing material. This practice is no worse 

 from a hygienic and esthetic standpoint than the chew- 

 ing of gum and tobacco by Americans, but the betel 

 contains a red coloring material and its habitues do not 

 improve their looks by the red lips, tongue and teeth, 

 which looks to the uninitiated very much as .though the 

 chewers, instead of enjoying the pastime, might be the 

 subjects of purpura hemorrhagica, or had just escaped 

 from the chair of an aggressive dentist. How helpless 

 the practitioner of medicine would be if Ceylon did not 

 supply him with cinchona and nux vomica, to say noth- 

 ing of cloves, cinnamon, cajeput, pepper, nutmeg and 

 other aromatics and carminatives with which we are in 

 the habit of disguising the taste and smell of more pow- 

 erful drugs and which often prove so efficacious in the 

 treatment of slight gastro-intestinal derangements. But 

 there are still more remarkable trees in Ceylon, which 

 prove the perfect foresight of the Creator in meeting 

 urgent wants of man and beast. Wherever there are 

 cocoa palms, man's immediate wants are met, as it sup- 

 plies him with drink and meat; the milk of the unripe 



