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After leaving the sea the palm trees soon disappeared, and we were surrounded by the graceful arecas, mixed with the kitool or jaggery palm, and numberless flowering trees and shrubs, the murutu with its profusion of lilac blossoms, and the gorgeous imbul or cotton-tree covered with crimson flowers.

Every cottage is surrounded by gardens of coco-nuts, arecas, jak-fruit and coffee; the slopes, under tillage, are covered with luxuriant vegetation, and, as far as the eye can reach on every side, there are dense forests intersected by streams, in the shade of which the deer and the elephant abound.

In these countries, when people are sick, they make a vow to offer meat to the devil in case of recovery; and when they recover, they make a banquet, with many pipes and drums and other musical instruments, dancing all night, and their friends bring gifts of coco-nuts, figs, arecas, and other fruits, and with much dancing and rejoicing they offer these to the devil, giving him to eat, and then drive him out.

The level ground next to the sea-side was covered with cocoa-nut trees, and a kind of palm called arecas; and beyond them the hills, which rose in a gentle and regular ascent, were richly clothed, quite to the summit, with plantations of the fan-palm, forming an almost impenetrable grove.