Tin: PALMYRA FALM. lol 



the cocoa and palmyra palms changes by fermentation into an 

 intoxicating wine, and on being thickened by boiling furnishes 

 a kind of black sugar, much used by the natives of Java and 

 the adjacent isles. The reticulum or fibrous net at the base of 

 the petioles of the leaves constitutes the gumatty, a substance 

 admirably adapted to the manufacture of cables, and exten- 

 sively used for cordage of every description. The small hard 

 twigs found mixed up with this material are employed as pens, 

 besides forming the shafts of the sumpits or poisoned arrows of 

 the Malays, and underneath the reticulum is a soft silky 

 material, used as tinder by the Chinese, and applied as oakum 

 in caulking the seams of ships, while from the interior of the 

 trunk a kind of sago is prepared. 



The Areca palm (Areca Gatechit) bears a great resem- 

 blance to the cocoa-nut tree, but is of a still more graceful 

 form, rising to the height of forty or fifty feet, without any 

 inequality on its thin polished stem, which is dark green 

 towards the top, and sustains a crown of feathery foliage, in the 

 midst of which are clustered the astringent nuts, for whose sake 

 it is carefully tended. In the gardens of Ceylon the areca 

 palm is invariably planted near the wells and watercourses, 

 and the betel plant, which immemorial custom has associated 

 to its use, is frequently seen twining roimd its trunk. 



The Palmyra palm {Borassus flahellifo'mms) celebrated in 

 verse and prose for the numerous benefits it confers upon man- 

 kind, extends from the confines of Arabia to the Moluccas, and 

 is found in every region of Hindostan from the Indus to Siam, 

 the cocoa and the date tree being probably the only palms that 

 enjoy a still wider geographical range. In northern Ceylon, 

 and particularly in the peninsula of Jaffna, it forms extensive 

 forests ; and such is its importance in the Southern Dekkan, 

 and along the Coromandel coast, that its fruits afford a com- 

 pensating resource to seven millions of Hindoos on every occa^ 

 sion of famine or failure of the rice crop. Unlike the cocoa, 

 which gracefully bends under its ponderous crown, the palmyra 

 rises vertically to its full height of seventy or eighty feet, and 

 presents a truly majestic sight when laden with its huge 

 clusters of fruits, each the size of an ostrich's egg, and of a rich 

 brown tint, fading into bright golden at its base. It is not till 

 the tree has attained a mature age that its broad fan-like 



