Guam and Coconuts

GUAM

Guam or Guabon (as the native Indians pronounce it) is one of the Ladrone Islands.

It belongs to the Spaniards, who have a small fort with 6 guns in it, with a governor and 20 or 30 soldiers.

They keep it for the relief and refreshment of their Philippine ships that touch here in their way from Acapulco to Manila, but the winds will not so easily let them take this way back again.

The Spaniards recently have named Guam the island Maria. It is about 12 leagues long, and four broad, lying north and south. It is pretty high champion land.

May 21, 1686 at 11pm we anchored near the middle of the island Guam, on the west side a mile from the shore.

At a distance it appears flat and even, but coming near it you will find it stands shelving, and the east side, which is much the highest, is fenced with steep rocks that oppose the violence of the sea which continually rages against it, being driven with the constant trade-wind, and on that side there is no anchoring.

The west side is pretty low, and full of small sandy bays, divided with as many rocky points. The soil of the island is reddish, dry and indifferent fruitful.

The fruits are chiefly rice, pineapples, watermelons, musk-melons, oranges and limes, coconuts, and a sort of fruit called by us bread-fruit.

THE COCONUT-TREE, FRUIT, ETC.

The coconut-trees grow by the sea on the western side in great groves, three or four miles in length and a mile or two broad.

This tree is in shape like the cabbage-tree, and at a distance they are not to be known each from other, only the coconut-tree is fuller of branches; but the cabbage-tree generally is much higher, though the coconut-trees in some places are very high.

The nut or fruit grows at the head of the tree among the branches and in clusters, 10 or 12 in a cluster.

The branch to which they grow is about the bigness of a man’s arm and as long, running small towards the end. It is of a yellow colour, full of knots, and very tough. The nut is generally bigger than a man’s head.

The outer rind is near two inches thick before you come to the shell; the shell itself is black, thick, and very hard. The kernel in some nuts is near an inch thick, sticking to the inside of the shell clear round, leaving a hollow in the middle of it which contains about a pint, more or less, according to the bigness of the nut, for some are much bigger than others.

This cavity is full of sweet, delicate, wholesome and refreshing water.

While the nut is growing all the inside is full of this water, without any kernel at all; but as the nut grows towards its maturity the kernel begins to gather and settle round on the inside of the shell and is soft like cream; and as the nut ripens it increases in substance and becomes hard. The ripe kernel is sweet enough but very hard to digest, therefore seldom eaten, unless by strangers, who know not the effects of it; but while it is young and soft like pap some men will eat it, scraping it out with a spoon after they have drunk the water that was within it.

I like the water best when the nut is almost ripe for it is then sweetest and briskest.

When these nuts are ripe and gathered the outside rind becomes of a brown rusty colour so that one would think that they were dead and dry; yet they will sprout out like onions after they have been hanging in the sun three or four months or thrown about in a house or ship, and if planted afterward in the earth they will grow up to a tree. Before they thus sprout out there is a small spongy round knob grows in the inside, which we call an apple. This at first is no bigger than the top of one’s finger, but increases daily, sucking up the water till it is grown so big as to fill up the cavity of the coconut, and then it begins to sprout forth. By this time the nut that was hard begins to grow oily and soft, thereby giving passage to the sprout that springs from the apple, which nature has so contrived that it points to the hole in the shell (of which there are three, till it grows ripe, just where it’s fastened by its stalk to the tree; but one of these holes remains open, even when it is ripe) through which it creeps and spreads forth its branches. You may let these teeming nuts sprout out a foot and a half or two foot high before you plant them, for they will grow a great while like an onion out of their own substance.

THE TODDY, OR ARAK THAT DISTILS FROM IT; WITH OTHER USES THAT ARE MADE OF IT.

Beside the liquor or water in the fruit there is also a sort of wine drawn from the tree called toddy, which looks like whey. It is sweet and very pleasant, but it is to be drunk within 24 hours after it is drawn, for afterwards it grows sour. Those that have a great many trees draw a spirit from the sour wine called arak. Arak is distilled also from rice and other things in the East Indies; but none is so much esteemed for making punch as this sort, made of toddy, or the sap of the coconut tree, for it makes most delicate punch; but it must have a dash of Brandy to hearten it because this arak is not strong enough to make good punch of itself. This sort of liquor is chiefly used about Goa; and therefore it has the name of Goa arak. The way of drawing the toddy from the tree is by cutting the top of a branch that would bear nuts but before it has any fruit; and from thence the liquor which was to feed its fruit distils into the hole of a calabash that is hung upon it.

This branch continues running almost as long as the fruit would have been growing, and then it dries away.

The tree has usually three fruitful branches which, if they be all tapped thus, then the tree bears no fruit that year; but if one or two only be tapped the other will bear fruit all the while.

The liquor which is thus drawn is emptied out of the calabash duly morning and evening so long as it continues running, and is sold every morning and evening in most towns in the East Indies, and great gain is produced from it even this way; but those that distil it and make arak reap the greatest profit. There is also great profit made of the fruit, both of the nut and the shell.

The kernel is much used in making broth.

When the nut is dry they take off the husk and, giving two good blows on the middle of the nut, it breaks in two equal parts, letting the water fall on the ground; then with a small iron rasp made for the purpose the kernel or nut is rasped out clean, which, being put into a little fresh water, makes it become white as milk. In this milky water they boil a fowl, or any other sort of flesh, and it makes very savoury broth.

English seamen put this water into boiled rice, which they eat instead of rice-milk, carrying nuts purposely to sea with them. This they learnt from the natives.

But the greatest use of the kernel is to make oil, both for burning and for frying. The way to make the oil is to grate or rasp the kernel, and steep it in fresh water; then boil it, and scum off the oil at top as it rises: but the nuts that make the oil ought to be a long time gathered so as that the kernel may be turning soft and oily.

The shell of this nut is used in the East Indies for cups, dishes, ladles, spoons, and in a manner for all eating and drinking vessels. Well-shaped nuts are often brought home to Europe and much esteemed.

COIR CABLES.

The husk of the shell is of great use to make cables; for the dry husk is full of small strings and threads which, being beaten, become soft, and the other substance which was mixed among it falls away like sawdust, leaving only the strings. These are afterwards spun into long yarns, and twisted up into balls for convenience: and many of these rope-yarns joined together make good cables. This manufactory is chiefly used at the Maldive Islands, and the threads sent in balls into all places that trade thither purposely for to make cables. I made a cable at Achin with some of it. These are called coir cables; they will last very well. But there is another sort of coir cables (as they are called) that are black, and more strong and lasting; and are made of strings that grow like horse-hair at the heads of certain trees almost like the coconut-tree. This sort comes most from the island Timor. In the South Seas the Spaniards do make oakum to caulk their ships with the husk of the coconut, which is more serviceable than that made of hemp, and they say it will never rot. I have been told by Captain Knox, who wrote the relation of Ceylon, that in some places of India they make a sort of coarse cloth of the husk of the coconut which is used for sails. I myself have seen a sort of coarse sail-cloth made of such a kind of substance but whether the same or no I know not.

I have been the longer on this subject to give the reader a particular account of the use and profit of a vegetable which is possibly of all others the most generally serviceable to the conveniences as well as the necessities of human life. Yet this tree that is of such great use, and esteemed so much in the East Indies, is scarce regarded in the West Indies, for want of the knowledge of the benefit which it may produce. And it is partly for the sake of my countrymen in our American plantations that I have spoken so largely of it. For the hot climates there are a very proper soil for it: and indeed it is so hardy, both in the raising it and when grown, that it will thrive as well in dry sandy ground as in rich land. I have found them growing very well in low sandy islands (on the west of Sumatra) that are over-flowed with the sea every spring-tide; and though the nuts there are not very big yet this is no loss for the kernel is thick and sweet; and the milk, or water in the inside, is more pleasant and sweet than of the nuts that grow in rich ground, which are commonly large indeed, but not very sweet. These at Guam grow in dry ground, are of a middle size, and I think the sweetest that I did ever taste. Thus much for the coconut.

THE LIME, OR CRAB-LEMON.

The lime is a sort of bastard or crab-lemon. The tree or bush that bears it is prickly like a thorn, growing full of small boughs. In Jamaica and other places they make of the lime-bush fences about gardens, or any other inclosure, by planting the seeds close together, which, growing up thick, spread abroad and make a very good hedge. The fruit is like a lemon but smaller; the rind thin, and the enclosed substance full of juice. The juice is very tart yet of a pleasant taste if sweetened with sugar. It is chiefly used for making punch, both in the East and West Indies, as well ashore as at sea, and much of it is for that purpose yearly brought home to England from our West India plantations. It is also used for a particular kind of sauce which is called pepper-sauce and is made of cod-pepper, commonly called guinea-pepper, boiled in water and then pickled with salt and mixed with lime-juice to preserve it. Limes grow plentiful in the East and West Indies within the tropics.

THE BREAD-FRUIT

The bread-fruit (as we call it) grows on a large tree, as big and high as our largest apple-trees. It has a spreading head full of branches, and dark leaves. The fruit grows on the boughs like apples: it is as big as a penny loaf when wheat is at five shillings the bushel. It is of a round shape and has a thick tough rind. When the fruit is ripe it is yellow and soft; and the taste is sweet and pleasant. The natives of this island use it for bread: they gather it when full grown while it is green and hard; then they bake it in an oven, which scorches the rind and makes it black: but they scrape off the outside black crust and there remains a tender thin crust, and the inside is soft, tender, and white, like the crumb of a penny loaf. There is neither seed nor stone in the inside, but all is of a pure substance like bread: it must be eaten new for if it is kept above 24 hours it becomes dry and eats harsh and choky; but it is very pleasant before it is too stale. This fruit lasts in season eight months in the year during which time the natives eat no other sort of food of bread kind. I did never see of this fruit anywhere but here. The natives told us that there is plenty of this fruit growing on the rest of the Ladrone Islands; and I did never hear of any of it anywhere else.

They have here some rice also but, the island being of a dry soil and therefore not very proper for it, they do not sow very much. Fish is scarce about this island; yet on the shoal that our bark came over there was great plenty and the natives commonly go thither to fish.