they also make canoes with it. Comesserie and guitteba are chiefly used
in building ships; these are as much esteemed here as oaks are in
England, and they say either sort is harder and more durable than oak.
The serrie is a sort of tree much like elm, very durable in water. Here
are also all the three sorts of mangrove trees, namely the red, the
white, and the black, which I have described. The bark of the red
mangrove is here used for tanning of leather, and they have great
tan-pits for it. The black mangrove grows larger here than in the West
Indies, and of it they make good plank. The white mangrove is larger and
tougher than in the West Indies; of these they make masts and yards for
barks.

THE BASTARD-COCO, ITS NUTS AND CABLES; AND THE SILK-COTTON-TREES.

There grow here wild or bastard coconut-trees, neither so large nor 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