Adventures in the Philippine Islands

by Paul P. de La Gironière

Another bamboo, of smaller dimensions, and hollow within, which is covered with varnish, almost as hard as steel, is employed in building Indian houses. Cut to a point it is extremely sharp, and is used for many purposes. The Indians make lances of it, and arrows, and fleams for bleeding horses, and lancets for opening abscesses, and for taking thorns or other things out of the flesh.

A third kind, much more solid, and as thick as one’s arm, and not hollow within, is used in such parts of the buildings as require sold timber, and especially in the roofing.

A fourth kind, much smaller, and also without being hollow, serves to make the fences that surround enclosed fields when tilled. The other kinds are not so much employed, but still they are found to be useful.

To preserve the plants, and to render them very productive, the shoots are cut at ten feet from the ground. These shoots look like the tubes of an organ, and are surrounded with branches and thorns. At the beginning of the rainy season there grows from each of those groves a quantity of thick bamboos, resembling large asparagus, which shoot up as it were by enchantment. In the space of a month they become from fifty to sixty feet long, and after a short time they acquire all the solidity necessary for the various works to which they are destined.

The cocoa-nut tree belongs to the palm family: it requires to grow seven years before it bears fruit; but after this period, and for a whole century, it yields continually the same product—that is, every month about twenty large nuts. This produce never fails, and on the same tree may be seen continually flowers and fruits of all sizes. The cocoa-nut affords, as everyone knows, nutritious food, and when pressed yields a quantity of oil. The shell of the nut serves to make vases, and the filamentary parts are spun into ropes and cables for ships, and even into coarse clothing. The leaves are used to make baskets and brooms, and for thatching the huts.

The Cocoa-Nut.

A liquor is also taken from the cocoa-nut tree, called cocoa-wine; it is a most stupifying drink, of which the Indians make great use at their festivities. To produce the cocoa-wine, large groves of the cocoa-trees are laid out, from which merely the sap or juice is expected, but nothing in the shape of fruit. These trees have long bamboos laid at their tops from one to another, on which the Indians pass over every morning, bearing large vessels, in which they collect the liquid. It is a laborious and dangerous employment,—a real promenade in the air, at the height of from sixty to eighty feet from the ground. It is from the bud which ought to produce the flower that the liquid is drawn of which the spirit is afterwards made. As soon as the bud is about to burst, the Indian employed in collecting the liquid ties it very tight, a few inches from its point, and then cuts across the point beyond the tying. From this cutting, or from the pores which are left uncovered, a saccharine liquid flows, which is sweetish and agreeable to the palate before it has fermented. After it has passed the fermentation it is carried to the still, and submitted to the process of distillation, it then becomes the alcoholic liquor known in the country as cocoa-wine.

Besides these uses, the cocoa-nut shell, when burned, gives the fine black colour which the Indians make use of to dye their straw hats.

The banana is an herbaceous plant, without any woody matter: the trunk of each is formed of leaves placed one above the other. This trunk rises from twelve to fifteen feet from the ground, and then spreads out into long broad leaves, not less than five or six feet each. From the middle of these leaves the flower rises, and also the spike (régime). By this word is to be understood a hundred of large bananas growing from the same stalk, forming together a long branch, that turns towards the sun.