VOYAGE FROM INDIA TO SIAM AXD MALACCA. 83 



out : they were hydi^a, their Ixxiv was snowy white and had 

 eight arms which spread out. 



12. — The dreadful weather, combined with a feeling of weak- 

 ness and a disinclination against any work, kept me in for a few 

 days. As it seemed to be fine to day, I asked Captain Light to 

 let me have a boat and a few men : we rowed to a part of the 

 island which did not make it necessary for me to climb. I had 

 already at different times seen a Bauhinia in this place ; its stem 

 is as thick as a hand, and it first climbs up the trees without 

 forming any branches, only on reaching the top it divides itself 

 into a great nimiber of branches, which spread all over the tree. 

 The bark -is dark ashy-grey, the leaves are orbicular, a little 

 divided or cut in front; they are bigger than those of any other 

 kind of Bauhinia. The blossoms were a big Pamcula and were 

 in all their parts a perfect Bauhinia. The petals were like the 

 Iscoro.Iocc. bright red,, but it had only three bending stamina, 

 which were blood-red. The stylus was bent like that of the 

 Bauhiniis, the Legumina linear was thread-like, round, pointed and 

 longer than a finger. One of my people, who had lived in Pegu 

 for some years, told me that poor people there boil the silices 

 and eat them: they have however always a bitter taste and 

 remain hard even when they had been boiled in several fresh 

 waters, therefore if eaten too often they cause a Dysentery or 

 Mai de terre. 



I went a few hundred steps up the mountain and found to my 

 great astonishment two kinds of Areca trees. I had often g'iven 

 much money to the natives to procure me some parts of these 

 trees, but they had always asserted that they only grew deep 

 in the wilderness. There was a whole wood of them here, 

 white ones as well as the red kind. At first I found the white 

 kind: it grew as hig'h as a man: the stem was smgle, thick, 

 striped like that of all palms, without prickles: the bark was 

 green. The crown was moderately large, the leaves pinnate, 

 the leaflets linear, convex at the top, had three strong nerves: 

 the ends were obtuse. The edges of the leaves were smooth 

 and not sharp : the colour was light green. Many trees had 

 fruits and the male spadix still hung down from them, dry and 

 without blossom. All spadices consisted only of a few branches, 

 five or six, seldom more. They divided at the base and not any 

 further up. were strong and not quite a span long. 



