Page:History of the Royal Society.djvu/183

 Latitude, there be found such a Vegetable as Mr. James Lancaster'' relates to have seen, which grows up to a Tree, shrinks down, when one offers to pluck it up, into the Ground, and would quite shrink, unless held very hard? And whether the same, being forcibly pluck'd up, hath a Worm for its Root, diminishing more and more, according as the Tree groweth in Greatness; and as soon as the Worm is wholly turned into the Tree, rooting in the Ground, and so growing great? And whether the same plucked up young turns, by that time it is dry, into a hard Stone, much like to white Corral?''

A. I cannot meet with any that ever have heard of such a Vegetable.

Q. 7. Whether those Creatures that are in these Parts plump, and in Season at the full Moon, are lean and out of Season at the new, and the contrary, at the East Indies?

A. I find it so here, by Experience at Batavia, in Oysters and Crabs.

Q. 8. What ground there might be for that Relation, concerning Horns taking Root, and growing about Goa?

A. Inquiring about this, a Friend laught, and told me it was a Jeer put upon the Portuguese, because the Women of Goa are counted much given to Lechery.

Q. 9. Whether the Indians can so prepare that stupifying Herb Datura, that they make it lye several Days, Months, Years, according as they will have it, in a Man's Body, without doing him any hurt, and at the end kill him, without missing half an Hour's time?

A. The China Men in this Place have formerly used Datura as a Fermentation, to a sort of Drink much beloved by the Soldiers and Mariners, called Rh