Digital Grainger

An Online Edition of The Sugar-Cane (1764)

77

  • He oft distinguish’d; and for whom he oft
  • Had climb’d the bending coco’s airy height,
  • To rob it of its nectar; which the maid,

VER. 438. the bending coco’s] The coco-nut tree is of the palm genus; there are several species of them, which grow naturally in the Torrid Zone.1 The coco-nut tree is, by no means, so useful as travellers have represented it. The wood is of little or no service, being spungy, and the brown covering of the nuts is of too rough a texture to serve as apparel. The shell of the nut receives a good polish; and, having a handle put to it, is commonly used to drink water out of. The milk, or water of the nut, is cooling and pleasant; but, if drunk too freely, will frequently occasion a pain in the stomach. A salutary oil may be extracted from the kernel; which, if old, and eaten too plentifully, is apt to produce a shortness of breathing. A species of arrack2 is made from this tree, in the East-Indies. The largest coco-nut trees grow on the banks of the river Oronoko.3 They thrive best near the sea, and look beautiful at a distance. They afford no great shade. Ripe nuts have been produced from them in three years after planting. The nuts should be macerated in water, before they are put in the ground. Coco is an Indian name; the Spaniards call it also palma de las Indias; as the smallest kind, whose nuts are less than walnuts, is termed by them Coquillo. This grows in Chili,4 and the nuts are esteemed more delicate than those of a larger size. In the Maldivy Islands,5 it is pretended, they not only build houses of the coco-nut tree, but also vessels, with all their rigging; nay, and load them too with wine, oil, vinegar, black sugar,6 fruit, and strong water,7 from the same tree. If this be true, the Maldivian coco-nut trees must differ widely from those that grow in the West-Indies. The coco8 must not be confounded with the coco-nut tree. That shrub grows in the hottest and moistest vales of the Andes. Its leaf, which is gathered two or three times a year, is much coveted by the natives of South-America, who will travel great journeys upon a single handful of the leaves, which they do not swallow, but only chew. It is of an unpleasant taste, but, by use, soon grows agreeable. Some authors have also confounded the coco-nut palm, with the coco, or chocolate-tree. The French call the coco-nut tree, Cocotier. Its stem, which is very lofty, is always bent; for which reason it looks better in an orchard than in a regular garden. As one limb fades, another shoots up in the center, like a pike. The botanical name is Palma indica, coccifera, angulosa.

  1. A theoretical climatic zone lying between the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer; the tropics. The ancients believed that the torrid zone was uninhabitable. While the colonization of the Caribbean proved otherwise, many continued to believe that the tropics could induce what they called degeneration or the degradation of bodies and faculties. Furthermore, the fear of degeneration was intertwined with theories of geographic and racial difference, since it was usually argued that New World forms of nature, including human beings, were inferior to Old World ones and that Europeans hence would become inferior by inhabiting the Americas. ↩︎

  2. Also arak, an alcohol distilled from the fermented sap of the coconut palm (Cocos nucifera). ↩︎

  3. The Orinoco river, which passes through modern Colombia and Venezuala. ↩︎

  4. Chile. ↩︎

  5. The Maldives archipelago, which is in the Indian Ocean. Now the Republic of Maldives. ↩︎

  6. Possibly jaggery, a coarse, dark brown sugar made by evaporation from the sap of various kinds of palm. ↩︎

  7. Distilled liquor. ↩︎

  8. The coca plant, the source of cocaine. Two species of coca are now in cultivation: Erythroxylum coca, whose native range is western South America, and Erythroxylum novogranatense, whose native range is Colombia to northwestern Venezuela and Peru. ↩︎