325 
Vegetables of Ceylon, 
this pulp dries up and becomes of a brownish colour. On being 
stript of its external coating, the nut, which when plucked 
from the tree Aras' as large as a middling sized bowl, is reduced 
to the size of a twelve or eighteen pound cannon ball. On the 
smaller cod of the nut being opened, we find about a pint of a 
very cool, refreshing, milky liquor, which forms a dilicious drink. 
To the inside of the shell adheres a coat of about half an inch 
thick, of a very white substance, in taste resembling a blan- 
ched almond. It is frequently eaten in its natural state, but 
more frequently in curries, muiicataun}^ and peppermint water. 
It is first scraped olf the inside of the shell with an instru- 
ment I have already described, resembling the rowel of a spur ; 
and then, being mixed with water, forms a substance like milk. 
The oil extracted from the cocoa-nut is highly esteemed 
among the natives, and indeed is applicable to every useful pur- 
pose. It is prepared from the oldest of the nuts, which are 
first split and left in the sun to dry without any of their in- 
side coating being removed : and when sufficiently dried, they 
are put into mills prepared for the purpose, and the oil is ex- 
pressed from them. 
It is not, however, the nut alone that affords food and luxuries 
to man. From the top of the tree where the leaves shoot up, 
a liquor called toddy is procured by incision. A slit is made 
in this part of the tree with a knife overnight, and a chatty 
or earthen-pot suspended from the branches so as to receive the 
juice, which immediately begins to distil, and continues to do 
so till next morning, when the pot is removed. This liquor, 
when drunk before the heat of the rising sun has caused it to 
ferment, is very wholesome and cooling, and operates as a 
gentle purgative. But upon being fermented, it becomes in- 
toxicating ; and in this state is well known to the European 
