PALM-WINE. 311 
leis melanococca, is only six feet four inches high, 
but its spathe contain more than 200,000 flowers, 
a single specimen furnishing 600,000 at the same 
time. The kernels of the fruit are peeled in water, 
and the layer of oil that rises from them, after being 
purified by boiling, yields the manteca de corozo, 
which is used for lighting churches and houses. 
After an hour’s walk they found several inhabi- 
tants collecting palm-wine. The tree which affords 
this liquid is the Palma dolce or Cocos butyracea. 
The trunk, which diminishes but little towards the 
summit, is first cut down, when an excavation 
eighteen inches long, eight broad, and six in depth, 
is made below the place at which the leaves and 
spathe come off. After three days the cavity is 
found filled with a yellowish-white juice, having 
a sweet and vinous flavour, which continues to flow 
eighteen or twenty days. The last that comes is 
less sweet, but having a greater quantity of alcohol, 
it is more highly esteemed. On their way back to 
the shore they met with Zambos carrying on their 
shoulders cylinders of palmetto three feet in length, 
of which an excellent food is prepared. Night sur- 
prised them; and, having broken an oar in return- 
ing on board, they found some difficulty in reaching 
the vessel. 
The Rio Sinu is of the highest importance for 
provisioning Carthagena. The gold-washings which 
were formerly of great value, especially between its 
source and the village of San Geronimo, have al. 
most entirely ceased, although the province of An- 
tioquia still furnishes, in its auriferous veins, a vast 
field for mining speculations. It would, however, 
be of more importance to direct attention to the cul. 
