E'X PEDITION to SURINAM. 235 



but ftill is well worthy of notice. It grows like the for- CHAP. 



X. 



nier, in a tall jointed trunks fometimes from fixty to above '_ . 

 eighty feet high, and is thick in proportion, but feldom 

 perpendicularly ftraight : its bark is of a grey colour; the 

 wood is hard without, bat pithy within, like the elder in 

 Great Britain ; its branches are larger, and of a deeper 

 green, than thofe of the manicole-tree, but are equally 

 divided, with pinnated leaves on both fides, which in the 

 other I compared to green ribbons ; but they neither 

 hang fo ftraight downwards, nor are the branches regu- 

 larly arched, which gives them the appearance of large 

 feathers, and they fpring up at the top, in proportion as 

 they fade and go off at the bottom : the cocoa-tree alfo 

 produces a cabbage at its fummit, but is too valuable to 

 be cut down for the fake of a prize f ) inadequate to the 

 lofs of its other produce. It bears the nuts when fix or 

 eight years old, after which period it is never feen with- 

 out them ; they grow ufually fix or eight on one ftalk> 

 which diverges from the heart of the tree; they are the 

 lize of a man's head, but more conical. The nut, it is well 

 known, when divefted of its hufk, is exceedingly hard, 

 and requires a hammer to break it, or to be fa wed through 

 the middle to procure the nourifliment it affords ; when 

 young, tliis confiiis of a white liquid, which I can com- 

 pare to nothing better than to milk and water mixed with 

 fugar, and which is an exceedingly cool and agreeable 

 beverage; but at a riper period this is formed into a 

 crifp kernel, which adheres clofe to the iufide of the flieli 

 Vol. L H h 3 for 



