23 
clusters of green fruit, and others arrived at maturity, appear in 
mingled beauty. The trunk, though porous, furnishes beams and 
rafters for our habitations; and the leaves, when platted together, 
make an excellent thatch, and common umbrellas, coarse mats 
for the floor, and brooms; while their finest fibres are woven into 
very beautiful mats for the rich. The covering of the young 
fruit is extremely curious, resembling a piece of thick cloth, in a 
conical form, close and firm as if it came from the loom; it ex- 
pands after the fruit has burst through its inclosure, and then ap- 
pears of a coarser texture. The nuts contain a delicious milk, 
and a kernel, sweet as the almond: this, when dried, affords abun- 
dance of oil ; and when that is expressed, the remains feed cattle 
and poultry, and make a good manure. The shell of the nut fur- 
nishes cups, ladles, and other domestic utensils; while the husk 
which encloses it is of the utmost importance: it is manufactured 
into ropes, and cordage of every kind, from the smallest twine to 
the largest cable, which are far more durable than those of hemp. 
In the Nicobar islands, the natives build their vessels, make the 
sails and cordage, supply them with provisions and necessaries, 
and provide a cargo of arrack, vinegar, oil, jaggree or coarse sugar, 
cocoa-nuts, coir, cordage, black paint, and several inferior articles 
for foreign markets, entirely from this tree. Gibbon, the historian, 
writing of the palm tree, adds, that the Asiatics celebrated, either 
in verse or prose, the three hundred and sixty uses to which the 
trunk, the branches, the leaves, the juice, and the fruit, were skil- 
fully applied. 
Many of the trees are not permitted to bear fruit; but the 
embryo bud, from which the blossoms and nuts would spring, 
