name.

The vessels most used in the Red Sea, though ships of all sizes may be
met with there, are gelves, of which some mention hath been made already;
these are the more convenient, because they will not split if thrown upon
banks or against rocks. These gelves have given occasion to the report
that out of the cocoa-tree alone a ship may be built, fitted out with
masts, sails, and cordage, and victualled with bread, water, wine, sugar,
vinegar, and oil. All this indeed cannot be done out of one tree, but
may out of several of the same kind. They saw the trunk into planks, and
sew them together with thread which they spin out of the bark, and which
they twist for the cables; the leaves stitched together make the sails.
This boat thus equipped may be furnished with all necessaries from the
same tree. There is not a month in which the cocoa does not produce a
bunch of nuts, from twenty to fifty. At first sprouts out a kind of seed
or capsula, of a shape not unlike the scabbard of a scimitar, which they
cut, and place a vessel under, to receive the liquor that drops from it;
this drink is called soro, and is clear, pleasant, and nourishing. If it
be boiled, it grows hard, and makes a kind of sugar much valued in the
Indies: distil this liquor and you have a strong water, of which is made
excellent vinegar. All these different products are afforded before the
nut is formed, and while it is green it contains a delicious cooling
water; with these nuts they store their gelves, and it is the only
provision of water which is made in this country. The second bark which
contains the water is so tender that they eat it. When this fruit
arrives to perfect maturity, they either pound the kernel into meal, and
make cakes of or draw an oil from it of a fine scent and taste, and of
great use in medicine; so that what is reported of the different products
of this wonderful tree is neither false nor incredible.

It is time we should come now to the relation of our voyage. Having
happily passed the straits at the entrance of the Red Sea, we pursued our
course, keeping as near the shore as we could, without any farther
apprehensions of the Turks. We were, however, under some concern that we
were entirely ignorant in what part of the coast to find Baylur, a port
where we proposed landing, and so little known, that our pilots, who had
made many voyages in this sea, could give us no account of it. We were
in hopes of information fr