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Whether they knew or ever made use of the Coccos I cannot tell; the immence sharpness of every part of this vegetable before it is dressd makes it probable that any people who have not learnd the uses of it from others may remain for ever ignorant of them. Near their fires were great abundance of the shells of a kind of fruit resembling a Pine apple very much in appearance, tho in taste disagreable enough; it is common to all the East Indies and calld by the Dutch there Pyn appel Boomen (Pandanus); as also those of the fruits of a low Palm calld by the Dutch Moeskruidige Calappus (Cycas circinalis) which they certainly eat, tho they are so unwholesome that some of our people who tho forewarnd depending upon their example eat one or 2 of were violently affected by them both upwards and downwards, and our hogs whose constitutions we thought might be as strong as those of the Indians literaly dyed after having eat them. It is probable however that these people have some method of Preparing them by which their poisonous quality is destroyd, as the inhabitants of the East Indian Isles are said to do by boiling them and
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) *286, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-290.html