140 PALMS, 



necessary to the human race, should grow in the same locality;" * 

 but, unfortunately for the palmyra, the erroneousness of this 

 belief has of late years been conclusively demonstrated, as, 

 even in its ancient head-quarters at Jaffna, it is now almost 

 outnumbered by the recent plantations of cocoa-nuts, and has 

 in many instances been felled to make room for its more for- 

 tunate and still more valuable rival. 



The Talpot or Talipot of the Singalese (Gorypha urn- 

 hra(yidifera) 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 in- 

 teresting use is for the manufacture of a kind of paper, so dur- 

 able as to resist for many ages 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 appli- 

 cation of charcoal ground with a fragrant oil. The leaves of the 

 palmyra similarly prepared are used for ordinary purposes ; but 

 the most valuable books and documents are written to-day, as 

 they have been for ages past, on olas or 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 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 nuts were formerly believed 

 to be of submarine origin, whence they derived their name of coco 

 de mer, and to have the wonderful power of neutralising poisons. 



On the Maldive Islands these wonderful drift-nuts were the 

 exclusive property of the king, who either sold them at ant 

 exorbitant price, or made presents of them to other potentates* 

 At length, about a hundred years ago, the French travelled 



* Rumphius, *' Herbarium Amboiiiense." 



