the Fruit of the Mellort.. j6« : - 



of India, touch at the Nicobar Iflands, in order to procure a cargo of 

 cocoa-nuts, which they purchafe at the rate of four for a tobacco leaf, and 

 one-hundred for a yard of blue eloth,- and a bottle of cocoa-nut oil for four 

 leaves of tobacco. The tropical fruits grow in thofe iflands exquiutely 

 flavoured, the pine-apple in particular: wild cinnamon and faflafras grow 

 there alfo ; the coffee tree in two years yields fruit ; yams are to be found 

 for three or four months in the year only ■, and are eaten by the natives 

 inflead of the Larum a nutritive fruit ; in the defcription of which and the 

 tree that produces it, we mail here endeavour tobevery particular. 



The tree, that bears this nutritive fruit, is a fpecies of Palm, called by 

 them Larum, by the Portuguese, ■ Mcllori ; and is very abundant 

 in thofe iflands, as well as in Carnicobari.it grows promifeuoufly in the 

 woods among other trees, but it delights more particularly in a damp foil. 

 The trunk is often ftraight, thirty or thirty-five feet high, and ten or twelve 

 inches (the oldeft even, two- feet) in circumference : the bark is fmooth, aflr- 

 coloured, with equidiftant interferons, of a compacl: hard texture in its 

 interior part, but foft and quite hollowdn the centre from the top of the 

 trunk ; the leaves grow difpofed like a calyx about three feet long and four 

 inches broad, enfiform and aculeate, of a dark green hue, and of a tenaci- 

 ous hard fubftance : the roots are out of the ground, and inferted at eight 

 or ten feet on the trunk, .seconding to, its age, being, not quite two feet in. 

 the earth : the fruit, which has the fliape of a pine, and the fize of a large 

 Jaca y comes out of the bottom of the leaves ■-; the age of a man isfeldom 

 fufficient. to fee the trees bearing fiuit: its weight forces it out of the leaves, 

 and, when it is nearly ripe, which is known by the natives on the change 

 of its colour Trom green -to yellowim, it is g-tthcr^d and weighs from thirty 

 to forty pounds. The drupes are Joofcaed by thruiling a piece of iron 



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