great sea falls in upon the shore: as it does especially in many open
roads in the East and West Indies; where they might therefore be very
serviceable; but I never saw any of them there.

ITS VEGETABLES, SILK-COTTON, ETC. ITS SOIL, AND TOWNS; ITS GUINEA-HENS
AND OTHER FOWLS, BEASTS, AND FISH. OF THE SEA TURTLES, ETC. LAYING IN THE
WET SEASON. OF THE NATIVES, THEIR TRADE AND LIVELIHOOD.

The island Mayo is generally barren, being dry, as I said; and the best
of it is but a very indifferent soil. The sandy bank that pens in the
salt pond has a sort of silk-cotton growing upon it, and a plant that
runs along upon the ground, branching out like a vine, but with thick
broad leaves. The silk-cotton grows on tender shrubs, 3 or 4 foot high,
in cods as big as an apple, but of a long shape; which when ripe open at
one end, parting leisurely into 4 quarters; and at the first opening the
cotton breaks forth. It may be of use for stuffing of pillows, or the
like, but else is of no value, any more than that of the great
cotton-tree. I took of these cods before that were quite ripe, and laid
them in my chest; and in 2 or 3 days they would open and throw out the
cotton. Others I have bound fast with strings, so that the cod could not
open; and in a few days after, as soon as I slackened the string never so
little, the cod would burst and the cotton fly out forcibly at a very
little hole, just as the pulp out of a roasting apple, till all has been
out of the cod. I met with this sort of cotton afterwards at Timor (where
it was ripe in November) and nowhere else in all my travels; but I found
two other sorts of silk-cotton at Brazil, which I shall there describe.
The right cotton-shrub grows here also, but not on the sandbank. I saw
some bushes of it near the shore; but the most of it is planted in the
middle of the isle, where the inhabitants live, cotton-cloth being their
chief manufacture; but neither is there any great store of this cotton.