372 



A DISCOURSE 



liOOK IV. Lot the fartlior curious, or those who may take these wonders 

 ''^■^y^^ for a florid epiphoneina only of this work, add to the most an- 

 cient naturalists, Avhat they will find improved, on this ample subject, 

 in the late excellently learned and judicious Malpighius, Grew, 

 liay, Senertus, Faber, and others, who have defined these astonishing 



by an attractive virtue sucks in, with the moisture that nourisheth it, and conveys 

 throughout from root to head) is discovered by a reddish, minute sand appearing in the 

 earth ; the disease dilates not only in the body, but outwardly on the trunk of the tree ; 

 when the bandarin perceives this, he is forced to make a great hole through the sound 

 part of the tree, to hinder the contagion from creeping further, as is practised in gan- 

 grenes, where the sound part is cut off: the parts affected without, are unbarked, and 

 •where the sand appears they run in hot irons. These cures not timely applied, the pro- 

 fitable tree perisheth. These disasters are accompanied with a secret of nature, worth 

 reflection. Two or three years before this untimely death, these trees are said to be 

 laden with Cocoas or nuts, so beyond custom, that this unusual excess is suspicious to 

 the natives, and awakens them to watch the diseases incident to the Palm-tree, so to 

 hinder them by a timely prevention ; nature by this overplus, seems to supply the absence 

 and loss of this tree ; and the beneficial Palm, foreseeing the end of her munificence, 

 strives to recompense her owner. There is yet in the Palm-tree a thing more excellent, 

 delicious, and more grateful to the palate, than hath been mentioned; a morsel to be 

 compared with whatsoever is esteemed most delicate, is that they call Palmito, the inner- 

 most eye of the tree ; which being cut out and stript of the boughs, may pass for the centre 

 of all the branches, which in the heart of the tree, before they shoot forth, are so joined 

 and united, as to appear the same thing. The substance of this Palmito is white like 

 milk, delicious in extremity, coagulated, tender, of a taste above milk, more delightful, 

 and of a better confection ; i?i jine, a hocone pleasing in the highest, and free from all fulsome- 

 ness. What I have said, is without exaggeration ; the reader, I am sure, would, if he 

 tasted it, be of ray opinion, who am able to give a sufficient account of this Palmito ; for 

 besides my experience of it in India, where other provision was not wanted, at the Cape 

 of Good Hope, (where the vessel we came in from Portugal suffered shipwreck, at the 

 land called Terra de Natal, and where we spent eight months on shore, in the place we 

 ■were first cast upon, to build two barks to save our company,) I had leisure enough to be 

 convinced of its exquisiteness ; there, scarcity of provision, obliged us to make use of what 

 we found ; it was our good fortune to light on great store of Palm-trees, not of those which 

 yield Cocoas or nuts, but of that species which bear dates; there, having known in India 

 what the Palmito was, we in a short time furnished ourselves with as many as grew in a 

 league's compass ; the Palmito served us for food and dainty, neither was its gratefulness 

 heightened by our hungei*. 



" The fruitfulness and profit of the Palm-tree, last many years ; there are signs for a near 

 guess at her precise duration. This tree puts forth every year four branches, which 

 leisurely display themselves in the form of a cross, and aftftr three or four years decay ; these 

 the Palm-tree of herself casts off, or they are lopt off by the bandarins, eve]y one leaving 

 a mark where it grew : by these is given a probable conjecture at the age of the tree. 



