COOK THE COCONUT PALM IN AMERICA. 293 



the Valley where you go ashore, is thick set with Coco-nut Trees, which flourish here 

 very finely, it being a rich and fruitful Soil. They grow also on the Skirts of the 

 Hilly Ground in the Middle of the Isle, and scattereing in Spots upon the Sides of it, 

 very pleasantly. a 



So much for the number and location of the palms. That this 

 description does not, by any chance, apply to any other palm with 

 which the coconut could be confused, even in the seventeenth cen- 

 tury, is shown by a further incident. 



Nor did we spare the Coco-Nuts, eating what we would, and drinking the Milk, and 

 carrying several Hundreds of them on board. Some or other of our Men went ashore 

 every Day: And one Day among the rest, being minded to make themselves very 

 merry, they went ashore and cut down a great many Coco-trees; from which they 

 gather 'd the Fruit, and drew about 20 Gallons of the Milk. Then they all sat 

 down and drank Healths to the King and Queen, etc. They drank an excessive 

 Quantity; yet it did not end in Drunkenness: But however, that Sort of Liquor had 

 so chilled and benumb'd their Nerves, that they could neither go nor stand: Nor 

 could they return on board the Ship, without the Help of those who had not been 

 Partakers in the Frolick: Nor did they recover it under 4 or 5 Days Time. 



In view of these statements the present complete, or nearly com- 

 plete, extinction of the coco palm can scarcely be understood except 

 as the result of the absence of human inhabitants from Cocos Island 

 during the last two centuries, another example of the fact that the 

 species can not compete with the vegetation of the coasts and islands 

 of the humid tropics. If Cocos Island were a mere coral atoll or 

 sand bar, the traditional possibility of sea-drifted coconuts could 

 still be drawn upon, but it has an area of about 18 square miles and 

 a mountainous surface, the highest peak rising about 660 meters. 

 When the size and topography of the island are considered and the 

 presence of a considerable native flora, Wafer's statements regarding 

 the coconut groves on the slopes away from the sea would seem to 

 point to clearing and planting by the hand of man though the apparent 

 number of the palms may have been increased by confusion with the 

 native species that grows on the mountains. 



That there were no inhabitants at the time of Wafer's visit does 

 not prove that the island had never been occupied. Even without a 

 permanent population the coconuts may have been planted and 

 cared for by natives of the mainland for use during fishing expeditions, 

 a plan followed in some localities in the Malay region. The serious 

 disturbances that followed the arrival of the Spaniards in the Panama 

 region would naturally tend to interrupt such visits. Already in 

 Wafer's time the palms must have been abandoned long enough to 

 conceal the evidences of human agency in planting them, for any more 

 direct indications that the island had been inhabited would undoubt- 

 edly have been noted. 



a Water's New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, in Dampier's 

 Voyage, vol. 3, pp. 379, 380. (London, 1729.) 



