264 ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE COCOA PALM. 



seventeen j^ears in America — from 1570 to 1587 — and had extensive 

 personal acquaintance with Panama, Peru, and Mexico. His numer- 

 ous histories and theological works were rnostty written in a Jesuit 

 monastery on the shores of Lake Titicaca, and he had the opportunity 

 of drawing for information upon the numerous and intelligent mem- 

 bers of this order, several others of whom wrote contemporary histo- 

 ries of American countries, though seldom exhibiting Acosta's wide 

 interest in nature. 



It were not possible to reckon all the fruites and trees at the Indies, for that I 

 remember not many, and there are many more whereof I have no knowledge; and 

 in my opinion, it were troublesome to speake of all those I now remember . . . 

 yet do I not thinke it good to passe away under silence the Cocos or Indian palmes, 

 by reason of a very notable propertie it hath. I call them palmes, not properly, or 

 that it bears dates, but that they are trees like to other palmes. They are high and 

 strong, and the higher they grow the broader they stretch out their branches. These 

 Cocos yield a fruit Avhich they likewise call Cocos, whereof they commonly make 

 vesselles to drinke in, and some they say have a vertue against poison, and to cure the 

 paine in the side. The nutte and meate being dried, is good to eate, and comes 

 neare in taste to greene chestnuttes. When the Coco is tender upon the tree, the 

 substance within it is, as it were, milke, which they drink for daintines, and to refresh 

 them in time of heate. I have seene of these trees in San Juan de Puerto Rico, and 

 other parts of the Indies, and they report a wonderful thing, that every moneth or 

 Moone, this tree casts forth a new branch of this Cocos; so as it yeeldes fruite twelve 

 times in the yeere, as it in writte in the Apocalips: and in truth this seems like unto 

 it, for that all the branches are of different ages, some beginning, others being ripe 

 and some half ripe. These Cocos are commonly of the forme and bignes of a small 

 melon. 1 



Acosta later devotes a special chapter to the plants introduced to 

 America by the Spaniards, and thus we have both direct and indirect 

 evidence that the idea that the Spaniards brought the cocoanut was not 

 rife in his da} r . Cieza de Leon, who traveled in South America between 

 1532 and 1550, and who wrote the first sailing directions for the Pacific 

 coast, mentions an •'island of Palms" off the coast of Colombia, near 

 Buenaventura. 



Thence the coast trends S. \ L. to Cape Corrientes, and following the same course 

 vessels arrive at the island i >f Palms, so called from the quantities of those trees which 

 grow on it. It is little more than a league ami a half around. It has rivers of fresh 

 water, and used to be inhabited. This island is 25 leagues from Cape Corrientes, 



in 41V 



Oviedo also describes the port of Buenaventura as 5 leagues from 

 the " isla de Palmas." and it is evidently the same island to which 

 Dampier refers in his account of the same coast. 



From Cape Corrientes to the great river of Bonaventura is twenty-three leagues. 

 In the midway is the Island Palmas. which is a small, woody island, and hath a 

 sand on the southeast side, stretching from one end of the island to the other. 3 



1 Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, Makluyt ed., pp. 252, 253. 

 (London, 1SS0.) 

 -Travels of Cieza de Leon, 1532-1550, Hakluyt ed., p. 20 (1864). 

 3 Dampier's Voyage (London, 1729). 



