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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XI. 



Another kind of tree there is called hakra* of which they 

 get black sugar, and which the Hollanders therefore call "the 

 sugar-tree." The leaves are very large, and they are used 

 when it rains, because they keep off the water well.f 

 They bear apples as big as the head of a child, brown outside, 

 like a chestnut, and yellow inside. If one wants to open 

 and eat it the shell must first be pulled off with the teeth ; 

 the inner part is like a knot of hair ; when taken into 

 the mouth, it has a hard, large, white kernel, very sweet and 

 pleasant to eat ; yet one would rather think that the inner 

 part ought to be thrown away and the outside eaten. We 

 have often had a joke with new comers over this. J 



There is another kind of tree which they call sursack, a 

 favourite fruit with the elephants : it has leaves like a larch, 

 and does not bear its fruit, like other trees, on stalks away 

 from the trunk and on the branches, but on the trunk itself. 

 The fruit is long, green, thorny, very mucilaginous inside, 

 and with yellow seeds with a kernel, which, roasted like a 

 chestnut, have a very agreeable taste. § 



Capital lime, orange, and pomegranate trees are also found. 

 The natives, as well as foreigners, Hollanders, and Portuguese, 

 men and women, eat one or two oranges early in the 

 morning, and say that in the morning oranges are like gold 

 to the stomach, at noon and in the evening like lead : so you 

 will not see any Portuguese eat this fruit save at the time 

 first stated. 



There is a kind of pumpkin also, called melons : they grow 

 like pumpkins, not round like those of our Christian soil, but 

 long ; they are good and pleasant to eat.] 



* I.e., Sip., liakuru, " jaggery," a coarse brown sugar made in Ceylon 

 from the kitul ( Caryota urens), cocoanut ( Cocos nvcifera), and palmyra 

 (Borassus fttibelliformis) palms. Saar means the kitul. 



f The leaves of the talipot ( Corypfia umbraculifera ) or palmyra are, of 

 course, referred to. 



J The fruit of the palmyra palm. 



§ Sursack, the Dutch name for the Artocarpus \integrifolia, or jak-tree 

 (JPort., jaca, from Malayalam cliahka). Hobson-Jobsoji, s. v. " Soursop." 

 || Several species. Cf. Nieuhoff (Churchill, II., 329), on its good qualities. 



