246 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



Spain, they were called the Marianne Isles, in honor of Maria, 

 his queen. 



At another island the crew received from the inhabitants the 

 first present of cocoanuts made to a European of which any 

 record exists. Pigafetta describes this now world-famous fruit 

 in a manner which shows that he considered it a most wonderful 

 novelty. We extract a portion of his description: — "Cocoa- 

 nuts," he says, "are the fruit of a species of palm-tree, which 

 furnishes the people with bread, wine, oil, vinegar, and physic, 

 xo obtain wine, they make an incision in the top of the tree, 

 penetrating to the pith, from which drops a liquor resembling 

 white must, but which is rather tart. This liquor is caught in 

 the hollow of a reed the thickness of a man's leg, which is sus- 

 pended to the tree and is carefully emptied twice a day. The 

 fruit is of the size of a man's head, and sometimes larger. Its 

 outward rind is green and two fingers thick : it is composed of 

 filaments of which they make cordage for their boats. Beneath 

 this is a shell harder and thicker than that of the walnut. This 

 they burn and pulverize, using the powder as a remedy in several 

 distempers. Within, the shell is lined with a white kernel about 

 as thick as a finger, which is eaten, instead of bread, with meat 

 and fish. In the centre o_ the nut, encircled by the kernel, a 

 sweet and limpid liquor is found, of a corroborative nature. 

 This liquor, poured into a glass and suffered to stand, assumes 

 the consistence of an apple. The kernel and liquor, if left to 

 ferment and afterwards boiled, yield an oil as thick as butter. 

 To obtain vinegar, the liquor itself is exposed to the sun, and 

 the acid which results from it resembles that vinegar we make 

 from white wine. A family of ten persons might be supported 

 from two cocoanut-trees, by alternately tapping each every 

 week, and letting the other rest, that a perpetual drainage of 

 liquor may not kill the tree. We were told that a cocoanut- 

 tree lives a century." 



At another island, Pigafetta asserts that, by sifting the earth 



