DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49708#0112
, THE
MALDIVES.
Productions and
Manufactures.
Notes.
96 SESSIONAL PAPERS, 1881.
form of a round ball, which, as it grows dry, becomes also more solid and weighty. Others mix
and knead it with meal or flour of rice-husks, by which means they not only increase the
quantity, but heighten and better the colour. However, the ambergrease thus adulterated is easily
known, for if you take any quantity and burn it there will remain a coal, proportionable to the
quantity of the stuff mixed with it. It is observ’d, besides, that the worms get quickly into this
spurious sort of ambergrease. Others adulterate it by mixing it with a certain powder’d rosin of a
very agreeable scent, but this cheat also is easily discover’d, for upon burning a piece of it, the
mixture of rosin will evidently appear by the very colour, smell and quality of the smoke. The
Chinese have another way of trying whether it be genuine; it will dissolve and diffuse equally,
which the adulterated sort doth not. The natives use it no otherwise but as an ingredient of other
well scented spices, in order, as they say, to fix their volatile smell. In the main they value it but
little, and ’tis owing entirely to the Dutch and Chinese, who would buy it up at any rate, that they
have now learnt to prize it. And yet everybody is at liberty to take it up where he finds it and t0
sell it as his own property.”* * * §
Large pieces are occasionally obtained. Tavernier mentions two which weighed respectively
33 lbs. and 42 lbs. ; but Kaempfer knew of a lump found in Japan seas weighing upwards of 100
cattis, or 130 lbs. Dutch weight, and of a yet larger tortoise-shaped piece (to be seen at
Amsterdam), that the King of Tidor sold to the Dutch East India Company in 1693 for 11,000
Rix-dollars, or about £2,000. It weighed 185 lbs. (Dutch).
Sea-Cocoanctt.—“ There is also a kind of nut, occasionally washed on shore, which is as large
as a man’s head, and like two huge melons joined together. They [the Maldivians] call it
Tauarcarre \tava-kdrlu\, and believe that it is produced by trees growing beneath the sea. The
Portuguese named it Cocos des Maldives : it is of great use in pharmacy and fetches a high price.”f
“ This fruit being uncommon, its form particular, and its origin unknown, all contributed to
assign to it extraordinary properties and to give rise to fable concerning its existence . The
tree which produces the Sea Coco, rising in many parts of the isle upon the borders of the sea, the
greatest part of the fruit falls into the water ; where floating it is carried by the wind and
currents to the Maldivian Isles, the only part of the world where this fruit had been found before
the discovery of the Isle of Praslin [Seychelles], from whence the Europeans called this coco ‘ the
Maldivian Coco,’ and the Maldivians Traoacarne, that is, ‘treasure.’ It was afterwards called
‘ Solomon’s Coco,’ to give it a name corresponding to the marvellous, which was annexed to its
origin. The tree being unknown that produced it, it was believed to be the produce of a plant
that grew at the bottom of rhe sea, which came off when it was ripe, and by its lightness floated
on the waves. There was nothing wanting to complete the fable but to ascribe very great and
extraordinary virtues to this fruit, and this was done accordingly. It was given out, and believed,
and is still believed, not only in the Indies, but through all Asia, that the almond of the Sea Coco
has all the properties which we attribute to Theriaca Mithridate, and which perhaps we exaggerate ;
(viz.,) that its outward covering is a certain antidote to all kinds of poison.^ The grandees of
Indostan still purchase this fruit at a very high price ; they make cups and shell, which they
adorn with gold and diamonds ; and never drink out of any other, being persuaded that poison,
which they are much afraid of because they often employ it themselves against others, let it
be ever so active, cannot hurt them if their liquor is but purified in these salutary goblets. The
king of the Maldivian Isles avails himself of this general error. His predecessors assumed, and he
reserves to himself, the exclusive right to a fruit, which being carried upon waves, and driven
ashore by the wind, ought to belong to whoever picks it up, but the Sea Coco, when it shall be
found not to be so rare and extraordinary a production, will doubtless soon lose its value and
virtues, and the Maldivian Monarch the tribute, which has been paid him by ignorance and error.§
* Not so at the Maldives, where it was a criminal offence for private individuals to appropriate ambergris.
Car il appartient au Roy, et mil n’ oseroit, le retenir qu’ il n’ east le poing couppe. (Pyrard, p. 163.)
f Pyrard, p. 163.
I Faria-y-Sousa (English edn. Vol. I., p. 229) says it is “ a greater antidote against poison than bezoar stone.”
“ Here [Colombo, in 1777] is seen likewise a Borassus or Sea-Cocoa brought from the Maidive Islands, which had
been set in earth, had grown up, and was now in the third year of its growth, having only three leaves, The nut
had lain eight months in the ground before it put forth the first leaf They take of it [the kernel] half or even
a whole drachm. It is deemed a sovereign remedy against the flux, epilepsy, and apoplexy. Lhe inhabitants of the
Maldives call it Tavarcare.”—Thumberg, “Travels,” 3rd ed. Vol. IV., pp. 133, 159. “ bo much as 4,000 florins were
offered by the Emperor Rodolf II. for a single specimen.”—-Tennent, quoting Malte Brun, Vol. IV., p. 240.
§ Sonnerat's “Voyage to the Spice Islands” (English translation, pp. 2-6, London, 1781.) A description of the
tree and fruit follows. Tennent (Vol. 11., p. 126.) refers to Sir W. Hooker’s full account in the Botanical Magazine.
Vol. XII.
MALDIVES.
Productions and
Manufactures.
Notes.
96 SESSIONAL PAPERS, 1881.
form of a round ball, which, as it grows dry, becomes also more solid and weighty. Others mix
and knead it with meal or flour of rice-husks, by which means they not only increase the
quantity, but heighten and better the colour. However, the ambergrease thus adulterated is easily
known, for if you take any quantity and burn it there will remain a coal, proportionable to the
quantity of the stuff mixed with it. It is observ’d, besides, that the worms get quickly into this
spurious sort of ambergrease. Others adulterate it by mixing it with a certain powder’d rosin of a
very agreeable scent, but this cheat also is easily discover’d, for upon burning a piece of it, the
mixture of rosin will evidently appear by the very colour, smell and quality of the smoke. The
Chinese have another way of trying whether it be genuine; it will dissolve and diffuse equally,
which the adulterated sort doth not. The natives use it no otherwise but as an ingredient of other
well scented spices, in order, as they say, to fix their volatile smell. In the main they value it but
little, and ’tis owing entirely to the Dutch and Chinese, who would buy it up at any rate, that they
have now learnt to prize it. And yet everybody is at liberty to take it up where he finds it and t0
sell it as his own property.”* * * §
Large pieces are occasionally obtained. Tavernier mentions two which weighed respectively
33 lbs. and 42 lbs. ; but Kaempfer knew of a lump found in Japan seas weighing upwards of 100
cattis, or 130 lbs. Dutch weight, and of a yet larger tortoise-shaped piece (to be seen at
Amsterdam), that the King of Tidor sold to the Dutch East India Company in 1693 for 11,000
Rix-dollars, or about £2,000. It weighed 185 lbs. (Dutch).
Sea-Cocoanctt.—“ There is also a kind of nut, occasionally washed on shore, which is as large
as a man’s head, and like two huge melons joined together. They [the Maldivians] call it
Tauarcarre \tava-kdrlu\, and believe that it is produced by trees growing beneath the sea. The
Portuguese named it Cocos des Maldives : it is of great use in pharmacy and fetches a high price.”f
“ This fruit being uncommon, its form particular, and its origin unknown, all contributed to
assign to it extraordinary properties and to give rise to fable concerning its existence . The
tree which produces the Sea Coco, rising in many parts of the isle upon the borders of the sea, the
greatest part of the fruit falls into the water ; where floating it is carried by the wind and
currents to the Maldivian Isles, the only part of the world where this fruit had been found before
the discovery of the Isle of Praslin [Seychelles], from whence the Europeans called this coco ‘ the
Maldivian Coco,’ and the Maldivians Traoacarne, that is, ‘treasure.’ It was afterwards called
‘ Solomon’s Coco,’ to give it a name corresponding to the marvellous, which was annexed to its
origin. The tree being unknown that produced it, it was believed to be the produce of a plant
that grew at the bottom of rhe sea, which came off when it was ripe, and by its lightness floated
on the waves. There was nothing wanting to complete the fable but to ascribe very great and
extraordinary virtues to this fruit, and this was done accordingly. It was given out, and believed,
and is still believed, not only in the Indies, but through all Asia, that the almond of the Sea Coco
has all the properties which we attribute to Theriaca Mithridate, and which perhaps we exaggerate ;
(viz.,) that its outward covering is a certain antidote to all kinds of poison.^ The grandees of
Indostan still purchase this fruit at a very high price ; they make cups and shell, which they
adorn with gold and diamonds ; and never drink out of any other, being persuaded that poison,
which they are much afraid of because they often employ it themselves against others, let it
be ever so active, cannot hurt them if their liquor is but purified in these salutary goblets. The
king of the Maldivian Isles avails himself of this general error. His predecessors assumed, and he
reserves to himself, the exclusive right to a fruit, which being carried upon waves, and driven
ashore by the wind, ought to belong to whoever picks it up, but the Sea Coco, when it shall be
found not to be so rare and extraordinary a production, will doubtless soon lose its value and
virtues, and the Maldivian Monarch the tribute, which has been paid him by ignorance and error.§
* Not so at the Maldives, where it was a criminal offence for private individuals to appropriate ambergris.
Car il appartient au Roy, et mil n’ oseroit, le retenir qu’ il n’ east le poing couppe. (Pyrard, p. 163.)
f Pyrard, p. 163.
I Faria-y-Sousa (English edn. Vol. I., p. 229) says it is “ a greater antidote against poison than bezoar stone.”
“ Here [Colombo, in 1777] is seen likewise a Borassus or Sea-Cocoa brought from the Maidive Islands, which had
been set in earth, had grown up, and was now in the third year of its growth, having only three leaves, The nut
had lain eight months in the ground before it put forth the first leaf They take of it [the kernel] half or even
a whole drachm. It is deemed a sovereign remedy against the flux, epilepsy, and apoplexy. Lhe inhabitants of the
Maldives call it Tavarcare.”—Thumberg, “Travels,” 3rd ed. Vol. IV., pp. 133, 159. “ bo much as 4,000 florins were
offered by the Emperor Rodolf II. for a single specimen.”—-Tennent, quoting Malte Brun, Vol. IV., p. 240.
§ Sonnerat's “Voyage to the Spice Islands” (English translation, pp. 2-6, London, 1781.) A description of the
tree and fruit follows. Tennent (Vol. 11., p. 126.) refers to Sir W. Hooker’s full account in the Botanical Magazine.
Vol. XII.