The family Robinson Crusoe

by Johann David Wyss

Fritz was much amused at this discovery. How I wish Ernest could have been here! cried he. How he envied me the fine large cocoa-nuts I was to find, and the whole tea cup full of sweet delicious milk, which was to spring out upon me from the inside! But, father, I myself believed that the cocoa-nut contained a sweet refreshing liquid, a little like the juice of almonds; travellers surely tell untruths!

Travellers certainly do sometimes tell untruths, but on the subject of the cocoa-nut I believe them to be innocent. The cocoa-nut is well known to contain the liquid you describe, just before they are in a state of ripeness. It is the same with our European nuts, with only the difference of quantity; and the circumstance is common to both, that as the nut ripens, the milk diminishes, by thickening and becoming the same substance as the nut. If you put a ripe nut a little way under the earth in a good soil, the kernel will shoot and burst the shell; but if it remain above ground, or in a place that does not suit its nature, the principle of vegetation is extinguished by internal fermentation, and the nut perishes as you have seen.

I am now surprised that this principle is not extinguished in every nut; for the shell is so hard, it seems impossible for a softer substance to break it.

The peach stone is no less hard: the kernel notwithstanding never fails to break it, if it is placed in a well nurtured soil.

Now I begin to understand. The peach stone is divided into two parts like a muscle-shell; it has a kind of seam round it, which separates of itself when the kernel is swelled by moisture:—but the cocoa-nut in my hand is not so divided, and I cannot conceive of its separating.

I grant that the cocoa-nut is differently formed; but you may see by the fragments you have just thrown on the ground, that nature has in another manner stepped in to its assistance. Look near the stalk, and you will discover three round holes, which are not, like the rest of its surface, covered with a hard impenetrable shell, but are stopped by a spongy kind of matter; it is through these that the kernel shoots.

I will gather all the pieces and take them to Ernest, and tell him all these particulars; I wonder what he will say about it, and how he will like the withered nut.

Now the fancy of your father, my dear boy, would be to find you without so keen a relish for a bit of mischief. Joke with Ernest if you will about the withered nut; but I should like to see you heal the disappointment he will feel, by presenting him at last with a sound and perfect nut, provided we should have one to spare.

After looking for some time, we had the good luck to meet with one single nut. We opened it, and finding it sound, we sat down and ate it for our dinner, by which means we were enabled to husband the provisions we had brought. The nut, it is true, was a little oily and rancid; yet, as this was not a time to be nice, we made a hearty meal, and then continued our route. We did not quit the wood, but pushed our way through it, being often obliged to cut a path through the bushes overrun by creeping plants, with our hatchet. At length we reached a plain, which afforded a more extensive prospect and a path less perplexed and intricate.

We next entered a forest to the right, and soon observed in it here and there some trees of a particular species. Fritz, whose sharp eye was continually on a journey of discovery, remarked that some of them were of so very extraordinary an appearance, that he could not resist the curiosity he felt to examine them closely. O heavens! father, he next exclaimed, what a singular kind of trees, with wens growing all about their trunks! We both walked up to some of them, and I perceived, with great surprise and satisfaction, that they were of the gourd tree kind, the trunks of which bear fruit. Fritz, who had never heard of such a tree, could not conceive the meaning of what he saw, and asked me if the fruit was a sponge or a wen. We will see, I replied, if we cannot unravel the mystery. Try to get down one of them, and we will examine them minutely.