Page:A voyage to New Holland - Dampier.djvu/104

 ger here than in the West Indies, and of it they make good plank. The white mangrove is larger and tougher than in the West Indies; of these they make masts and yards for barks.

There grow here wild or bastard coconut-trees, neither so large nor so tall as the common ones in the East or West Indies. They bear nuts as the others, but not a quarter so big as the right coconuts. The shell is full of kernel, without any hollow place or water in it; and the kernel is sweet and wholesome, but very hard both for the teeth and for digestion. These nuts are in much esteem for making beads for paternosters, boles of tobacco pipes and other toys: and every small shop here has a great many of them to sell. At the top of these bastard coco-trees, among the branches, there grows a sort of long black thread-like horsehair, but much longer, which by the Portuguese is called tresabo. Of this they make cables which are very serviceable, strong and lasting; for they will not rot as cables made of hemp, though they lie exposed both to wet and heat. These are the cables which I said they keep in their harbours here, to let to hire to European ships, and resemble the coir cables.

Here are 3 sorts of cotton-trees that bear silk-cotton. One sort is such as I