THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1887. 
the poonac is nearly as valuable as the oil itself. 
If, however, all the oil is extracted, it becomes of 
hardly any value for feeding cattle, pigs, &c. And 
it was, I hear (for I never saw the mills) in this 
respect that cur English machinery so utterly failed. 
That there is an opening for improved machinery 
cannot be denied, when there are without exagger- 
ation several hundreds of the old-fashioned kind at 
present at work. Visitors at the Colonial Exhibition 
must certainly have noticed the fine specimens of 
cocos de mer exhibited in the Seychelles section of 
the Mauritius court. Seychelles is the only place 
where the double coconut is to be met with. In 
fact, even here, there is only one island, that of Peaslin, 
where it grows in profusion. The nut when cut in 
two and properly polished makes a first-rate and 
very ornamental bread-dish or flower-stand. I there- 
fore recommend it to the notice of British bric-a-brac 
manufacturers. It is much to be regretted that 
samples of the straw, straw-plait and hats made 
from the leaves of the coco de mer were not also 
forwarded for exhibition. The straw hats are very 
similar in colour, &c, to those manufactured at home. 
I have never heard of any coco de mer straw having 
been exported, though there are tons and tons of 
leaves left rotting at Peaslin every year. Perhaps 
some use might be found for it at home. Luton 
manufacturers had therefore better try a sample. 
I, if applied to, would of course be only too pleased 
to assist in any way in my power. 
A thiug that militates much against the trade direct 
between this place and Eogland is the entire absence of 
banks. Nothing of the kind is to be found in the colony. 
Merchants usually make their remittances in vanilla ov 
other produce, which they purchase from the many 
small growers that abound here — persons who usually 
are unable to wait till their produce is sold in Europe, 
and who, consequently, are forced to accept any pricts 
the merchants choose to fix. The rupee is now quoted 
at about 45 per cent, discount in Mauritius, but vanilla 
can be purchased in small quantities at figures so low 
that when remittances are made to Europe this heavy 
discount is hardly felt at all. The principal traders 
are usually Indians from Madras, they are very pushing, 
and have almost the whole trade of the place in 
their own hands. — British Trade Journal. 
♦ 
COUNT FICALHO'S HISTORY OF GARCIA DA 
ORTA AND HIS TIME. 
By Professor Fluckiger. 
Among the publications of the " Sociedade de 
Geographia de Lisboa," there is to be noticed a 
very valuable catalogue of the useful plants of the 
Portuguese possessions in Africa, by the Professor 
of Botany in the Polytechnic School of Lisbon, 
Count de Ficalho : " Plantas uteis da Africa 
Portugueza," published in Lisbon, 1884, i. e., 
the first part of the volume, 279 pages, in 8vo, 
which contains the Dicotyledons and the Gymno- 
sperms. I am sorry the second part, which wiil be 
devoted to the Monocotyledons, has not yet made 
its appearance. 
In the first part of the ' Plantas uteis,' the 
author gives a very careful history of the discovery 
and the exploration of the countries which he 
terms " Africa Portugueza." From this preface it 
is evident that Count Ficalho is not only 
throughly acquainted with the geographic liter- 
ature of his own people, but also with that of 
England, France and Germany, and his catalogue 
is lav from being a mere enumeration. He gives a 
very full and interesting account of every one of 
the plants he deals with, and here again I am 
pleaBC-d to Bee that the author furnishes in a very 
correct and exhaustive way all the botanical, 
practical and historical references which may be 
desirable in order to illustrate each of his " Use 
lul Plants." I have read with particular in- 
terest, especially the chapters on Xylopiu xthiopica, 
Jatrorhiza Cahimha, /Idawonia di/jilata, Cola 
acuminata, Arachis hypogcea, Tamarindus, the 
several Copal plants, Carica J J apaya, Coffea, Lan- 
dolphia, Sesamum, Nanilwt utiiieeima and many 
others. 
Count Ficalho with good reason restricted his 
work to the African settlements of Portugal, those 
in the Indian Peninsula being too insignificant. 
They were important in the sixteenth century ; 
Goa was then a great centre of commercial activ- 
ity, but is now entirely superseded by Bombay. 
In Goa there was Jiving, apparently for about 
thirty years, an intelligent surgeon, Garcia da 
Orta, physician to the Portuguese Viceroy and to 
a hospital of Goa. This city was the place 
where most of the drugs occurring in the various 
regions of Asia were to be met with in the 
bazaars as they are now-a-days chiefly in Bombay. 
Garcia da Orta zealously availed himself of the 
exquisite opportunity of examining these drugs, at 
least the more interesting among them. He 
compiled his observations in the volume which 
bears the following title : " Coloquios dos Sim- 
ples e drogas he cousas medicinais da India e assi 
de alguas frutas achadas nella onde se tratam 
alguas cousas tocantes amedician, pratica, e outras 
cousas boas, pera saber copostos pello Doutor garcia 
dorta ; fisico del Rey nosso senhor. . . . Im- 
presso em Goa, por Joannes de endem as x dias de 
Abril de 1563 annos." 
A colloquy is not precisely the form which 
would answer to the taste of readers in our days, 
surely not in questions of materia medica. But 
Garcia's ' Coloquios' are nevertheless one of the 
most remarkable documents of the kind. The 
original edition is at the same time a book of 
utmost importance to biblophiles or bibliomanes, 
for it is thought to exist only in a few copies 
still, say a dozen ; Count Ficalho states that he 
knows of one in India, three in Portugal, one 
in the Paris library, and one at Leiden. I 
have consulted that of the British Museum.* But 
the knowledge of Garcia's notes or Coloquios was 
very soon widely spread by the Latin translation 
by Clusius, first published in 1567. 
Garcia da Orta being one of the most interesting 
Portuguese authors of his time, it is or was a pity 
that but very little was known as to his person. 
It was a good plan, therefore, proposed by the 
Royal Academy of Lisbon, to cause a new edition 
of Garcia's work to be elaborated, aDd to have it 
accompanied and elucidated by critical notes con- 
cerning of course also a biographic investigation. 
The Academy had the excellent fortune to possess 
among its own fellows the only man to whose care 
that task could be safely entrusted ; Count Ficalho 
had largely proved by his ' Plantas uteis da Africa 
Portugueza' that he was the right man to appreciate 
and illustrate Garcia de Orta. f 
I have been most obligingly presented, by the 
author, with the first part of his investigation, 
which appedred under the title: " Garcia da Orta 
e o sen tempo pelo Conde de Ficalho, Lente de Botanica 
na escola polytechnica, Socio effective da Academia 
real das Sciencias de Lisboa." Lisboa, Imprensa 
nacional, 1886, 4to, 392 pp. 8vo. In the preface the 
author states that he felt obliged to seek first for 
information about Garcia's person before elaborat- 
ing the new edition of the Coloquios. In doing so 
Count Ficalho considered at the same time the 
period of Garcia's stay in India from a general 
standpoint, and at last secured such an amount 
* See ' Pharmacographia,' second edition, 1879, 760. 
— There is also a copy in the imperial library of Rio 
de Janeiro, accerding to Varnhagen. 
f 1 may also quote his ' Investigations on the 
Botanical. Influence oi the Discoveries of the Portu- 
guese,' 1878, which I naye also before me. 
