E X P E D I T I O N T O S U R I N A M. 67 

 to form the fucceeding green tegument, but fo clofe that CHAP, 



XIX 



they form a crifp folid body. This, when eaten raw, is ^ _r 

 in tafte fomething like the kernel of an almond, but is 

 more tender and more delicious ; when cut in pieces and 

 boiled, it eats like cauliflower : it may be alfo peeled in 

 the above-mentioned long thin flakes, and then it makes 

 an excellent fallad ; but too much of it, whether eaten 

 raw or drefled, is unwholefome, as it is apt to occafion 

 a diarrhoea. It is in the cavity, after the cabbage is 

 removed from it, that a black beetle depolits its fpawn, 

 from which the palm-tree worms are produced, which 

 feed on the remaining tender fubftance when it begins 

 to rot, till they acquire the lize already mentioned ; 

 though thofe in the manicole tree, and other trees of the 

 palm fpecies, grow not fo large, are lefs fweet, and are 

 alfo differently fliaped. 



The maureecee tree, by the French called latanie, 

 is certainly the talleft of all the palm-tree fpecies ; or, in- 

 deed, of any fpecies in the foreft of Guiana. And I can 

 aver, that I have feen fome of thefe trees whofe lofty 

 fummits appeared to rife no lefs than a hundred feet from 

 the furface of the earth, while the circumference of their 

 trunks was about ten or twelve feet where thickeft ; the 

 trunk of this tree is largeft at about one-fourth of its height 

 from the root, whence it tapers not only upwards but 

 downwards alfo : this Angularity has perhaps efcaped all 

 other writers. It is of a light brown or grey-colour, and ^ 

 divided in joints all the way upwards to its branches, when 

 (but at a great height, and near the top) it diverges in long 



K 2 green 



