[81] This is the jaggeri, or palm-sugar, used extensively in southern India. It is made by boiling down the fresh toddy over a slow fire. The description of the extraction of the toddy, etc., is substantially correct.
[82] “Omni tempore mundi, et hoc sicut venit.”
[83] “The leaves are employed for thatching houses, especially in Malabar.” (Drury, p. 152.)
[84] The well known coir. The native practice is to steep the husk in salt water for eighteen months or two years before beating out the coir; but this has been proved to be injurious. The virtues of coir are strength, lightness, elasticity, durability, power of standing sea-water. It is now largely used in England for brushes, mats, carpets, etc. (Drury.)
[85] Persian Tár. Tádí is the Teloogoo name, according to Drury; in Hindustani, tár and tál. It is the palmyra (Borassus flabelliformis), a tree found from Malabar along the coast to Bengal, and thence down the transgangetic coast through Burma and the great islands, and also up the Ganges to Cawnpore, a little above which it ceases. The fruit is of no value. The wood is much used for rafters, etc., and it is better than that of any other Indian palm; but the tree is chiefly used for the derivation of the liquor to which, as taken from this and other palms, we give the slightly corrupted name of toddy, a name which in Scotland has received a new application. It is the tree from which palm-sugar is most generally made. The leaves are used for making fans (the typical fan being evidently a copy of this leaf), for writing on, and in some places for thatching, etc.
[86] Belluri I conceive to be the Caryota urens, which, according to Rheede (Hortus Malabar., i.), is called by the Brahmans in Malabar birala. Most of our author’s names seem to be Persian in form; but there is probably no Persian name for this palm. Richardson, however, has “barhal, name of a tree and its fruit.” This tree yields more toddy than any other palm, as much as a hundred pints in twenty-four hours. Much sugar is made from it, especially in Ceylon. It also affords a sago, and a fibre for fishing lines, known in England as “Indian gut.” A woolly stuff found at the springing of the fronds, is said by Drury to be used for caulking. I may add that it makes an excellent amadou for smokers; but the specific name does not come from this fact, as I have heard suggested, but from the burning acridity of the fruit when applied to the tongue. The caryota, with its enormous jagged fronds, and huge pendulous bunches of little bead-like berries, is a very beautiful object. The fruit is actually used for beads by the Mahomedans. Buchanan (Mysore, etc., ii, 454) says its leaves are the favourite food of the elephant, and that its sugar is superior to that of the palmyra, but inferior to that of the cocoa nut.
[87] The banyan:
“Such as at this day, to Indians known
In Malabar or Decan, spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground