1292.—"The Indian Nuts are as big as melons, and in colour green, like gourds. Their leaves and branches are like those of the date-tree."—John of Monte Corvino, in do., p. 213.
c. 1328.—"First of these is a certain tree called Nargil; which tree every month in the year sends out a beautiful frond like [that of] a [date-] palm tree, which frond or branch produces very large fruit, as big as a man's head.... And both flowers and fruit are produced at the same time, beginning with the first month, and going up gradually to the twelfth.... The fruit is that which we call nuts of India."—Friar Jordanus, 15 seq. The wonder of the coco-palm is so often noticed in this form by medieval writers, that doubtless in their minds they referred it to that "tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruit, and yielded her fruit every month" (Apocal. xxii. 2).
c. 1340.—"Le nargīl, appelé autrement noix d'Inde, auquel on ne peut comparer aucun autre fruit, est vert et rempli d'huile."—Shihābbuddīn Dimishḳī, in Not. et Exts. xiii. 175.
c. 1350.—"Wonderful fruits there are, which we never see in these parts, such as the Nargil. Now the Nargil is the Indian Nut."—John Marignolli, in Cathay, p. 352.
1498-99.—"And we who were nearest boarded the vessel, and found nothing in her but provisions and arms; and the provisions consisted of coquos and of four jars of certain cakes of palm-sugar, and there was nothing else but sand for ballast."—Roteiro de Vasco da Gama, 94.
1510.—Varthema gives an excellent account of the tree; but he uses only the Malayāl. name tenga. [Tam. tennai, ten, 'south' as it was supposed to have been brought from Ceylon.]
1516.—"These trees have clean smooth stems, without any branch, only a tuft of leaves at the top, amongst which grows a large fruit which they call tenga.... We call these fruits quoquos."—Barbosa, 154 (collating Portuguese of Lisbon Academy, p. 346).
1519.—"Cocas (coche) are the fruits of palm-trees, and as we have bread, wine, oil, and vinegar, so in that country they extract all these things from this one tree."—Pigafetta, Viaggio intorno il Mondo, in Ramusio, i. f. 356.
1553.—"Our people have given it the name of coco, a word applied by women to anything with which they try to frighten children; and this name has stuck, because nobody knew any other, though the proper name was, as the Malabars call it, tenga, or as the Canarins call it, narle."—Barros, Dec. III. liv. iii. cap. 7.
c. 1561.—Correa writes coquos.—I. i. 115.