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Updated: May 17, 2025
Simon de Andrada and a few Portuguese were driven among the Maldivia islands, where they remained till they learnt the fate of the viceroy. These islands are low, small, and very numerous, and are full of palm trees, or Cocoas, which are good against all kinds of poison.
There were two villages near the shore, whence some canoes brought off hogs and cocoas, but the Indians held them at so dear a rate that the Dutch would not buy any of them.
The next day another vessel was captured, engaged in warning the inhabitants that the English were on the coast, as also intended to give information to the galleon of her danger. The crew had got on shore, so their vessel was burnt. Putting into Acapulco, they found a bark laden with cocoas and anil.
On straight trees of a foot diameter, grapes, both red and white, and of a pleasant taste, much like those of Europe, grow in clusters about the body of the tree, like the cocoas. This isle also abounds in wild nutmeg-trees, which resemble our walnut-trees, and the fruit grows among the boughs, in the same manner as walnuts.
The cocoas flourish on hundreds of atolls where man never sees them, but the maoris ask a clearing of the jungle about their feet. The timber of the breadfruit is excellent for canoes and for lumber, and its leaves, thick and glossy, and eighteen inches long by a foot broad, are of account for many purposes, including thatch and plates.
The Dutch bartered with them that day for so many cocoas, as to produce twelve for each of their men, being eighty-five in number. The natives wondered much at the size and strength of the Dutch ship; and some of them even dived under her bottom, knocking it with stones, as if to try how strong it was.
He accordingly desisted, hoping to find some better opportunity for making his escape. From the coast of New Holland the Cygnet stood for the island of Cocoas. Here fresh water was obtained, and one of the canoes brought on board as many boobies and man-of-war birds as was sufficient for all the ship's company. They caught also a land animal resembling a large crawfish without its great claws.
The gyp-room was a species of pantry, one of which was to be found on each corridor, whence cups, saucers, and other utensils for the preparation of the famous ten o'clock "cocoas" could be obtained. You helped yourself, don't you know, and you took the things back when you had done with them, but you didn't wash them up.
The Desire remained nine days at Capal, during which Cavendish obliged the chief cacique, as well as the caciques of a hundred other islands, to pay tribute to him in hogs, hens, potatoes, and cocoas. The tribute being received on board, he hoisted the flags and sounded the drums and trumpets.
Already their tender stalks were interwoven, and their young branches of cocoas hung over the basin of the fountain. Except this little plantation, the nook of the rock had been left as it was decorated by nature.
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