31S 
THE ISLAND OF CEYLON. 
fluous by my readers, even although it is not by any means 
peculiar to the island I am describing. 
The cocoa-tree grows to a great height, is slender and 
straight, with, the body completely baie, and only the top 
crowned with a bunch of long green leaves. These leaves 
may be compared in appearance to a goose-quill : a thick 
ligament passes through the middle, and long green slips 
grow out from its sides, in the manner of fern. Under the 
leaves the nuts appear growing in clusters : each tree bears 
from two to three dozen. The nut has a rind or outside 
coat of a green colour, very thick, and composed of fibrous 
threads. These are so long as to be manufactured into ropes, 
called coy a ropes, and cordage of various descriptions : even 
cables of the largest size are made of them, anti are gene- 
rally esteemed from being more buoyant in salt water than 
those made of hemp. These fibres, however, are of too 
harsh a nature to be manufactured without some previous 
preparation ; and therefore on being taken off, the rind is 
put into water to swell, and is afterwards beaten, before it 
is capable of being wrought into cordage. 
When this outward rind is removed, if the nut is recently 
plucked, the shell is found slightly covered with a white 
pulp which adheres to it. After being kept for some time, 
however, 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 was as large as a mid- 
