174 TlMEHRI, 
weeds, treacherous footfalls. I have spoken of the 
abundance of the coquerite in this forest. It is probably 
the commonest tree of all over most extensive areas of 
it ; but it is not correspondingly useful. The leaves are 
to some extent used for thatch, and the heart sometimes 
as cabbage, and great numbers of the trees are felled in 
the season for their fruit, but these unimportant produc- 
tions represent wholly its economic value to the inhabi- 
tants. The fruit is about the size of a pigeon's egg, 
each bunch comprising several thousand, densely packed 
together in the form of a great cone, and between the 
rind and seed, there is a thin coating of pulp, of which 
the people are extraordinarily fond. The trees seem to 
vary very much in the quality of their fruit ; of a great 
many that are felled, the fruit is rejected, not having 
the taste required. I observed that the nuts were not 
saved and put into heaps, as the Indians do with them, 
for the luscious maggot, like the (( gru-gru worm" borer 
which they breed. 
Woodcutters estimate that on the bullet-tree reefs 
there are probably a thousand trees of all sizes, from 
saplings upwards, to an acre, and of these from 
one hundred to two hundred would be large enough 
to tap for balata ; but from my own observations, I 
should say half this number would be nearer the 
quantity. For even on the reefs the bullet-tree is not in 
exclusive possession. All, or nearly all, the forests of 
this country are mixed, — i.e., composed of more than 
one species, though often one or other kind predomi- 
nates. Mora is the only tree that I have seen in 
all but absolute possession in places, including the 
undergrowth, which consists of its saplings. When 
