334 FEEJEE GROUP. 
The cocoa-nut, called niu, I was told by Whippy that the natives 
say they have three varieties, but I believe our botanists obtained no 
more than two, which are distinguished by the brown and green 
colours of the nuts. The two varieties of the tree are much the same 
in appearance, and frequently grow to the height of seventy or eighty 
feet ; each of them bears from ten to twenty nuts. The natives are in 
the habit of collecting the sap from the flower-stalks when young, by 
cutting off the extremity, and suspending to it a vessel: this, when 
fresh, forms a pleasant beverage; it has a tartness that it acquires by 
the length of time it takes to run, but is in other respects very like the 
milk of a green or a fresh cocoa-nut. What all voyagers have said of 
this tree we found to be true; only instead of its uses being exaggerated, 
as some have supposed, they are in my opinion underrated: a native 
may well ask if a land contains cocoa-nuts, for if it does, he is assured 
it will afford him abundance to supply his wants. One circumstance, 
to which my attention was early drawn by Mr. Brackenridge, was 
the peculiarity of its growth, which would seem to point out some- 
thing peculiar in its constitution: it does not thrive higher than six 
hundred feet above the sea. All those seen above that height had 
a sickly appearance; and the lower it grew, even where its roots 
were washed by the salt water, the more prolific and flourishing it 
appeared. 
There was a use to which it was applied here that we had not before 
seen: the kernel of the old cocoa-nut is scraped, and pressed through 
woody fibres; the pulp thus formed is mixed with grasses and scented 
woods, and suffered to stand in the hot sun, which causes the oil to 
rise to the top, where it is skimmed off. The residuum, called kora, is 
pounded or mashed, wrapped in banana-leaves, and then buried under 
salt water, covered with piles of stones. This preparation is a com- 
mon food of the natives, and will keep for a long time; they prepare 
it as a kind of soup, which serves them (according to the whites) for 
tea or coffee. A large quantity of the oil is made and exported. Of 
this a part reaches the United States, where it is manufactured into 
soap, and again sent to Polynesia to be consumed. The wood of the 
cocoa-nut is only used for fortifying their towns, and as sills for their 
houses. 
The ivi of the natives, (Inocarpus edulis,) otherwise called the Tahiti 
chestnut, produces a large nut that is eaten by them, and is the prin- 
cipal food of the mountaineers. This they store away in pits, in the 
same manner as the bread-fruit. 
The papaw apple, (Carica papaya,) called walete, is in great abun- 
dance, but is not prized by the natives. 
