Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/403

Rh up no room, though they yield the treble advantage of fruit, liquor, and sugar, all, but especially the two last, in great profusion. The leaves also serve to thatch their houses, and to make baskets, umbrellas (or rather small conical bonnets), caps, tobacco pipes, etc. etc. The fruit, which is least esteemed, is also in the least plenty; it is a nut about as big as a child's head, covered like a cocoanut with a fibrous coat under which are three kernels which must be eaten before they are ripe, otherwise they become too hard to chew. In their proper state they a good deal resemble in taste the kernel of an unripe cocoanut, and like them probably afford but a watery nutriment. The excellence of the palm wine or toddy which is drawn from this tree makes, however, ample amends for the poorness of its fruit. It is got by cutting the buds, which should produce flowers, soon after their appearance, and tying under them a small basket made of the leaves of the same tree; into this the liquor drips, and must be collected by people who climb the trees for that purpose every morning and evening. This is the common drink of every one upon the island, and a very pleasant one it was so to us, even at first, only rather too sweet; its antiscorbutic virtues, as the fresh unfermented juice of a tree, cannot be doubted.

Notwithstanding that this liquor is the common drink of both rich and poor, who in the morning and evening drink nothing else, a much larger quantity is drawn off daily than is sufficient for that use. Of this they make a syrup and a coarse sugar, both which are far more agreeable to the taste than they appear to the sight. The liquor is called in the language of the island dua or duac, the syrup and sugar by one and the same name, gula; it is exactly the same as the jagara sugar on the continent of India, and prepared by simply boiling down the liquor in earthenware pots until it is sufficiently thick. In appearance it exactly resembles molasses or treacle, only it is considerably thicker; in taste, however, it much excels it, having, instead of the abominable twang which treacle leaves in the mouth, only a little burnt flavour, which was very agreeable to our palates. The