r so
tall as the common ones in the East or West Indies. They bear nuts as the
others, but not a quarter so big as the right coconuts. The shell is full
of kernel, without any hollow place or water in it; and the kernel is
sweet and wholesome, but very hard both for the teeth and for digestion.
These nuts are in much esteem for making beads for paternosters, boles of
tobacco pipes and other toys: and every small shop here has a great many
of them to sell. At the top of these bastard coco-trees, among the
branches, there grows a sort of long black thread-like horsehair, but
much longer, which by the Portuguese is called tresabo. Of this they make
cables which are very serviceable, strong and lasting; for they will not
rot as cables made of hemp, though they lie exposed both to wet and heat.
These are the cables which I said they keep in their harbours here, to
let to hire to European ships, and resemble the coir cables.

Here are 3 sorts of cotton-trees that bear silk-cotton. One sort is such
as I have formerly described by the name of the cotton-tree. The other 2
sorts I never saw anywhere but here. The trees of these latter sorts are
but small in comparison of the former, which are reckoned the biggest in
all the West India woods; yet are however of a good bigness and height.
One of these last sorts is not so full of branches as the other of them;
neither do they produce their fruit the same time of the year: for one
sort had its fruit just ripe and was shedding its leaves while the other
sort was yet green, and its fruit small and growing, having but newly
done blossoming; the tree being as full of young fruit as an apple-tree
ordinarily in England. These last yield very large pods, about 6 inches
long and as big as a man's arm. It is ripe in September and October; then
the pod opens and the cotton bursts out in a great lump as big as a man's
head. They gather these pods before they open; otherwise it would fly all
away. It opens as well after it is gathered; and then they take out the
cotton and preserve it to fill pillows and bolsters, for which use it is
very much esteemed: but it is fit for nothing else, being so short that
it cannot be spun. It is of a tawny colour; and the seeds are black, very
round, and as big as a white pea. The other sort is ripe in March or
April. The fruit or pod is like a large apple and very round. The outside
shell is as thick as the top of one's finger. Within this there is a very
thin