Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/102

 ■re FIJI AND THE FIJIANS. dulcis,) the wild fig, the kavika, or Malay apple, i^Eugenia Malaccensis^ aiid the shaddock. The tomitomi, tarawau^ and daiva are different kinds of wild plums. The fruit of the pandanus is also used by the natives. This remarkable tree, with its curious self-grown props or shores, is too familiar to need description. I have met with several instances in which the original root had no longer any connexion with the ground, while the tree was supported on a cluster of its supplementary props. The trunk is sometimes used in small buildings, but is chiefly valued for handles of garden-tools. The leaf makes good thatch and rough mats ; the flower gives scent to oil ; and the fruit is sucked, or strung into orange-coloured necklaces. The importance and value of the cocoa-nut is well known, and the uses to which it is put in Fiji are too numerous to detail. A remarkable fact, however, concerning this tree, may here be recorded. I am ac- quainted with two well authenticated cases of the nut-tree sending out branches. One at Mothe, after reaching a good height, branched off in two directions, and was consequently regarded with great veneration. The second and more remarkable case was found on the island of Ngua. Having grown about twenty-four feet high, a cocoa-nut tree struck out into Ave branches. A man told me that when he saw it, one of the branches had been blown off in a gale, and lay on the ground. He climbed up the trunk to the point of separation, but feared to ascend