Description of the Cocoa Palm; the Malabar Cinnamon, and Coffee shrub—Sanctity of Cows and Snakes in the eyes of the Malabars—Great Snakes—Quantity of Crocodiles—Dangerous Kites—Fire-Flies.
When I reflect on the happy country life you lead, far remote from the turmoil in which most mortals are involved, your senses daily regaled with the sight of flowers and the scent of blossoming forests, pleasant tracts of clover field lying before you with dew drops like diamonds hanging on every blade and leaf, my heart is filled with sadness at the contrast afforded by the dreary meadows inhabited by noxious monsters, that surround me. But as there are novelties to be met with among the animals and vegetables here, which are unknown in the Netherlands, I hope you will not find it irksome if I give you some account of the most remarkable that occur to me.
The cocoa palm, which is the most useful of all trees to man, adorns the shores of Malabar with its lofty crown. It would be tedious to repeat all that has been said of its excellencies, for there is no part of it which is not serviceable for some purpose or other. It appears to thrive best under the influence of the cool sea breeze and near the salt waters of the sea; for, in more inland situations it is found to languish. It seems also as though it delighted in human society, being much fresher and more fruitful in the neighbourhood of houses than in retired places.
The Creator, whose wisdom is apparent in all His works, would seem to have bestowed especial thought on this tree. The long slender trunk, laden at the top with fruit, he has provided with a multitude of fibres which take root on all sides in the soil, thereby enabling the tree to withstand the blasts of the wind. The bark is enveloped in a kind of tissue, which some of the natives make into cloaks. The fruit yields water for the thirsty, food for the hungry, oil for culinary purposes and fuel for the lamp. If you wish to extract wine from it, you must make an incision in the top of the tree, and hang vessels round it; and from the wound there gradually drops a liquid which would otherwise have circulated into the fruit. But now mark the wonderful change which this liquid undergoes. At first, it is sweet and rather nasty and as mild as our whey; but it soon becomes strong enough to cause intoxication: vinegar, and sugar of a brown and clayey sort, may also be made from it. This liquid is a profitable article of commerce to the Company. At Batavia they distil from it a beverage as strong as brandy, which is mixed with brown sugar and called arrack: this is sent to all parts of India, and brings in a good revenue. The upper end of the trunk of the cocoa palm is soft, and when the bark is opened a sort of pith of a white hue is found inside, called Palmyt, soft and delicious to the taste, and not unlike the cauliflower: but, what is chiefly remarkable to a naturalist, in this part is found the germ of the fruit and its shoots, neatly enclosed in a tube or sheath.
I shall give you no description of the pineapple, jack fruit, mango, cashew nut, and other Malabar fruits. All books of travels abound in plates and descriptions of them. But it is right to remark that the cinnamon is found here: not the fine, pleasant, species which grows in Ceylon, but a wild species, having a rough, thick bark, like that of the China-China, and a strong disagreeable flavour. The root of this tree is fit for yielding oil, and the oil which is procured from the rind is at first red, but gradually decomposes and settles down into a kind of camphor. The natives use this cinnamon in cookery, and as it is very cheap, costing less than a stiver per pound, there is no demand here for the better kind. The English contrive to sell this Malabar cinnamon in an underhand way in other places.
The coffee shrub is planted in gardens for pleasure, and yields plenty of fruit which attains a proper degree of ripeness. But it has not the refined taste of the Mocha coffee. An entire new plantation of coffee shrubs has been laid out at Ceylon, with what success, time will shew. If it thrive, great advantage no doubt will accrue to the East India Company, who will not thus be compelled to purchase such quantities from Mocha, where the price is very high and continually rising on account of the concourse of European traders from all parts, while for the same reason the value of the European and Indian wares brought there, is greatly diminished.
This country of Malabar, though mountainous in the interior, contains but little mineral wealth, except iron, which is not expensive here, and is exported to Mocha after being beaten out in small bars. The natives make their firelocks of this metal, and their swords likewise, though they prefer cutlasses of European workmanship. The loadstone is very cheap here. You can get it for 1s. per lb. But whether it is found here, or, as some have told me, is brought from the Maldives, I cannot positively say.
And now to pass on to the subject of animal life. You have heard perhaps that animals are esteemed holy among the Malabars, a coincidence with, or possibly an imitation of, the superstition of the ancient Egyptians, among whom the slaughter of a cow was reckoned a heinous crime. A rajah, when he mounts the throne, must take an oath to protect cows, brahmins and women. They cannot comprehend how we, Europeans, can be so cruel as to kill an animal which yields milk and butter for man’s sustenance. Therefore the places where cows are slaughtered are looked upon as unholy, and whenever they can prevent the act they do so. Among themselves any one who kills a cow is held guilty of murder, and though the murder of a man may be expiated by the payment of a sum of money, mercy is not easily extended to the crime of cow-killing. It is true that cows are daily brought into the town of Cochin which have been stolen by christians belonging to the Company’s jurisdiction, and we are obliged to wink at this practice, or punish the robbery, if discovered, by only a slight fine, or otherwise we should have to go without meat altogether.
It is not a little remarkable and must be ascribed to the wise decrees of Providence that although beef is prohibited to all natives and to christians living under native rule, yet the number of cows does not greatly increase.
When a native is dying he takes hold of the tail of a cow which is brought alive to his bed-side: and some imagine that by doing this they are conducted to heaven. Thus the cow’s tail serves much the same purpose to them, as wax tapers to the members of the Romish church, and in place of Holy water, they take cow dung, and spread it on their benches, floors and stairs, believing that the evil spirit cannot make his way over it to do them harm. They use this substance also in their purifications.
If a cow happens to die, the hide is stripped off by a certain caste or race, who are held in much the same low estimation with them, as flayers are among us. As the natives do not wear shoes, these skins are sold to the Company, a bundle or 20 pieces for 16 stivers; and they are sent to Ceylon where they are used for packing cinnamon.
There are great quantites of snakes here. Not only do they infest woods and fields, but they get into towns and houses also. We lose our fear of them in a great measure, from habit, but there is no doubt that they are very poisonous, and will kill a person who accidently treads upon them. Otherwise, they rather try to escape from us. The natives esteem them as almost divine, and hold their lives sacred. The cobra capella is the most reverenced. Its head is flat, broad and arched, and on its back is a figure resembling a pair of spectacles. The natives perform their Sombaien, or obeisance, to these snakes, and keep a bit of their gardens partitioned off in honour of them, and for the chance of their arrival. They burn a lamp, and place a dish of rice in these enclosures once a year. To such an extent do they carry the superstition, that whenever they find a dead cobra capella, they consider themselves bound to burn its body with a small piece of sandalwood, a grain of gold pearl dust, corals, &c., using the same ceremonies as at the burning of a person of one of the high castes. The European soldiers and sailors sometimes turn this custom to their own account: first they kill a snake and then sell it for a fanam or two to the superstitious Canarese, who buy it for the sake of giving it a good funeral. The cobra capellas are also used by the serpent charmers in their arts—they are taught to dance, being enclosed in separate baskets with which the charmers go about from house to house. In these dances they do not spring up on their tail, as travellers are wont to tell us, but merely twist themselves and raise the upper part of the body, which is no doubt their natural attitude when they sit upright, so that there is nothing marvellous in it. Moreover their poison has been carefully extracted, by making them bite some hard material, in consequence of which the vessels in the mouth containing the venom are broken, When a snake moves in this manner, one man blows on an instrument whilst another holds the cover of the basket over the snake, which keeps striking at it with its mouth as though it would bite if it could. The charmers are sometimes cheated by these snakes, if they are incautious in their management, so that it has become a proverb among the Malabars, that “the Carnakken (men who ride on elephants) and snake-charmers seldom die their natural death.” When the dance is over they close the cover of the flat basket over the snake’s head, and it creeps in of its own accord. In the mountains and remote jungles of this country there is a species of snake of the shape and thickness of the stem of a tree, which can swallow men and beasts entire. I have been told an amusing story about one of these snakes. It is said that at Barcelore, a chego had climbed up a cocoanut tree to draw toddy or palm wine, and as he was coming down, both his legs were seized by a snake which had stretched itself up alongside the tree with its mouth wide open, and was sucking him in gradually as he descended. Now, the Indian, according to the custom of his country, had stuck his Terformes (an instrument not unlike a pruning knife) into his girdle, with the curve turned outwards: and when he was more than half swallowed, the knife began to rip up the body of the snake so as to make an opening, by which the lucky man most unexpectedly was able to escape.
Though the snakes in this country are so noxious to the natives, yet the ancient veneration for them is still maintained. No one dares to injure them or to drive them away by violence, and so audacious do they become, that they will sometimes creep between people’s legs when they are eating, and attack their bowls of rice, in which case retreat is necessary until the monsters have satiated themselves and taken their departure.
The crocodiles or caymans also abound here, and are venerated by the Malabars. They are not so large or dangerous as those of Java. Most of the tanks and ponds of Malabar contain these animals, and they are found likewise in marshy places. They abound in the rainy season, when the plains are filled with water. I have myself seen six or seven of them in the short space between the town and the Company’s gardens, about half an hour’s distance. They are not very mischievous on dry land, but in the water they are more dreaded, as they occasionally drag a person down.
The tiger and elephant are so well known that I need not describe them here. I should mention however that in the fine season a certain species of kite is found here which I have never met with elsewhere. It is of an ugly red colour, furnished with sharp claws with which it snatches pieces of meat from a window, or fish and other eatables from men’s hands or basins as they go up the streets, and then flies away with its booty. Though so much given to ing, kites do great good within the town, acting as scavengers for the natives, who are by no means so neat in their habits as the people of Holland and Friesland. During the war of 1716 and 1717, they followed the army, finding abundant food to satisfy their hunger.
A little insect called the fire-fly is found in India; it is very small in size, and emits a bright sparkling light, which can be seen glittering at a distance in the evening. A species of bird resembling our sparrow, which builds very peculiar nests in the shape of a sheath, is endowed by nature with the power of attracting these insects, as if for the purpose of obtaining their light in its nest. The substance which emits the light is situated in the extremity of the insect’s body, which in day-light, or after death, is as white as wax; if the insect’s mouth is pressed, so as to hinder its respiration, the light is dimmed, but it shines out again brighter than before as soon as the pressure is removed.
FINIS.