nd then dry them in the
Sun, and afterwards shell them with a sharp stick one and one at a
time. These trees will yield some 500, some a 1000, some 1500 Nuts,
and some but three or four hundred. They bear but once in the Year
generally, but commonly there are green Nuts enough to eat all the
Year long. [The Leaves.] The leaves of it are somewhat like those of a
Coker-Nut Tree, they are five or six foot long, and have other lesser
leaves growing out of the sides of them, like the feathers on each
side of a quill. The Chingulays call the large leaves the boughs,
and the leaves on the sides, the leaves. They fall off every Year,
and the skin upon which they grow, with them. [The Skins, and their
use.] These skins grow upon the body of the Tree, and the leaves grow
out on them. They also clap about the buds or blossoms which bear the
Nuts, and as the buds swell, so this skin-cover gives way to them, till
at length it falls quite off with the great leaf on it. It is somewhat
like unto Leather, and of great use unto the Countrey People. It serves
them instead of Basons to eat their Rice in, and when they go a Journey
to tie up their Provisions: For in these skins or leaves they can tie
up any liquid substance as Oyl or water, doubling it in the middle,
and rowling it in the two sides, almost like a purse. For bigness they
are according to the Trees, some bigger, some less, ordinarily they
are about two foot length, and a foot and an half in breadth. In this
Countrey are no Inns to go to, and therefore their manner when they
Travel is, to carry ready dressed what provisions they can, which
they make up in these leaves. The Trees within have onely a kind of
pith, and will split from one end to the other, the [The Wood.] Wood
is hard and very strong; they use it for Laths for their Houses, and
also for Rails for their Hedges, which are only stakes struck in the
ground, and rails tyed along with rattans, or other withs growing in
the Woods. [The profit the Fruit yields.] Money is not very plentiful
in this Land, but by means of these Nuts, which is a great Commodity
to carry to the Coasts of Cormandel, they furnish themselves with all
things they want. The common price of Nuts, when there was a Trade,
as there was when I came first on this Land, is 20000 for one Doller;
but now they ly and grow, or rot on the ground under the Trees. Some
of these Nuts do differ much from others in their operation, having
this effect, that they wil