Ill STORY OF MAURITIUS. 
57 
attribute to it very extraordinary virtues: they suppose these trees to be a produc¬ 
tion of the sea, because the currents sometimes throw them on the coast of Malabar. 
They call them marine cocoa nuts. This fruit when stripped of its hair, mulieris 
corporis bifurcationem, cum natura et pilis represents. Its leaf, which is in the shape 
of a fan, is large enough to cover the half of a hut. But, in the usual proportionate 
dispensations of nature, this tree does not bear more than three or four of these enor¬ 
mous nuts; while the ordinary cocoa tree bears thirty or forty: their taste is much 
the same. Marine cocoas have been planted in the Isle of France, and begin to 
shoot. 
There are also some curious trees, as the date, which seldom bears fruit; the 
palm which is called the Araque, as well as that which produces the sago; the Ca- 
nificier and the Acajou, both of which yield flowers, but without fruit; the cinna¬ 
mon tree, of which avenues have been made, resembles a large pear tree, both in 
size and foliage; its small clusters of flowers and its cinnamon have an aromatic 
odour. There was but one cocoa tree in the island in the year 1769. 
It is long since the Ravinerara, a kind of nutmeg from Madagascar, has been 
planted here; as well as the Mangoustans and the Litchis, which produce the finest 
fruits in the world; the varnish tree, that yields an oil capable of preserving cabinet 
work; the tallow tree, whose seed is covered with a kind of wax; a tree from China, 
which yields small lemons in clusters like grapes; the silver tree of the Cape; and, 
lastly, the Teak, so well known for its service in the construction of vessels. 
Marine Productions . 
There is a great variety of fish in the seas that surround the Isle of France. 
Whales are often seen to windward of the island, particularly in the month of 
September, which is the season of their copulation; they are then frequently ob¬ 
served to poise themselves perpendicularly in the water, and approach the shore: 
they are very inferior in size to those of the North. They are never caught, though 
the Negroes are not unacquainted with the art of harpooning them, because those 
people are engaged in more useful and less perilous occupations. The flesh of these 
whales is like that of the ox. 
The Vieille, is a blackish fish, like a cod, both in shape and taste. It is sometimes 
poisonous, as well as several other kinds, which, however,'are easily known; Those 
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