327 
Vegetables of Ceylon. 
those high, straight, and slender trees. They have many ways 
of facilitating their ascent. Sometimes they tie pieces of the 
long leaf, twisted together like ropes of hay, around the body 
of the tree, leaving the distance of about two feet between 
each piece, and thus forming for themselves a sort of ladder. 
Frequently they embrace the tree with their feet, and then tie 
both together by a rope passed round the ancles ; at the same 
time they clasp the tree with their hands, and thus ascend, 
resting alternately on tlieir ancles and their arms. Having 
gained the top of one tree, their agility and dexterity prevents 
them from having to renew their toil. By means of tlie adjoin- 
ing branches, and some ropes fastened at difterent places for the 
purpose, they contrive to pass from one tree to another. I 
have seen them in this manner collect the toddy from a whole 
grove of cocoa-trees without once descending ; and their feats 
of agility on these occasions equalled any thing I have seen the 
most dexterous of our sailors perform among the rigging of a 
ship, and was scarcely outdone even by the monkeys, the native 
inhabitants of these groves. 
The trees from which the toddy is extracted, being deprived 
of so much of their juice, produce fruit of a very inferior 
quality, and much sooner fall into decay. 
When we consider the innumerable comforts which this tree 
aifords to the natives of India, it is not to be wondered that 
they hold it in the highest esteem, and reckon it a most im- 
portant part of their wealth. When a child is born, it is cus- 
tomary for them to plant a cocoa-tree in memorial of the 
happy event ; and the rings which are left around the trunk 
by its annual vegetation, serve to mark the number of the re- 
curring birth-days. 
