TODDY-DKAWIIs'G. 153 



or five mouths the palmyra will continue to pour forth its sap 

 at the rate of three quarts a day. But once in every three years 

 the operation is omitted, and the fruit is allowed to form, without 

 which the natives assert that the tree would pine and die.* 

 The hard and durable wood of the palmyra, which, consisting 

 like the other palms of straight horny fibres, can easily be split 

 into lengths, is said to resist the attacks of the termites, and is 

 used universally in Ceylon and India for roofing and similar 

 purposes. The leaves, finally, are employed for roofs, fences, 

 mats, baskets, fans, and paper. 



The Talpot or Talipot of the Singalese {Corypha um- 

 hraculifera) rises to the height of one hundred feet, and 

 expands into a crown of enormous fan-like leaves, each of 

 which when laid upon the ground will form a semicircle of 

 sixteen feet in diameter, and cover an area of nearly two 

 hundred superficial feet. These gigantic foliaceous expansions 

 are employed by the Singalese for many purposes. They form 

 excellent fans, umbrellas, or portable tents, one leaf being 

 sufficient to shelter seven or eight persons ; but their most 

 interesting use is for the manufacture of a kind of paper, so 

 durable as to resist for many a^es the ravages of time. The 

 leaves are taken, whilst still tender, cut into strips, boiled in 

 spring water, dried, and finally smoothed and polished, so as to 

 enable them to be written on with a style, the furrow made by 

 the pressure of the sharp point being rendered visible by the 

 application of charcoal ground with a fragrant oil. The leaves 

 of the palmyra similarly prepared are used for ordinary pur- 

 poses ; but the valuable documents are written to-day, as they 

 have been for ages past, on strips of the talipot. 



The currents of the sea sometimes drift to the shores of the 

 Maldives, and even to the south and west coasts of Java and 

 Sumatra, a nut, exceeding the ordinary cocoa-nut many times in 

 size, with the additional peculiarity of presenting a double, 

 or sometimes even a triple form, as if two separate fruits had 

 grown together. These mysterious gifts of the ocean, the 

 product of an unknown tree were believed to be of submarine 

 origin, and to have the wonderful power of neutralising poisons. 

 On the Maldive Islands they were the exclusive property of the 

 king, who either sold them at an exorbitant price, or made 



* Tennent's ' Ceylon,' vol. ii. p. 523. 



