io6
HISTORY OF SETTLEMENTS AND TRADE
book cing impending deftrudion : fuch are the phenomena
''    . that give rife to .this idea, or aflift in confirming it.
It is not known who were the firft inhabitants of
thefe iflands ; but it is certain that the Javans and the
Malays have fucceffively been in poffeffion of them.
At the beginning of the Sixteenth century they were
inhabited by a kind of favages, whofe chiefs, though
honoured with the title of kings, poffeffed only ali-
mited authority, totally depending on the caprice of
their Subjeds. They had, of late years, joined the fu-
perftitions of Mohammedifm to thofe of Paganifm,
which they had profeffed for a confiderable time.
Their indolence was exceffive. Their only employ-
ment was hunting and fifhing ; and they were than-
gers to all kind of agriculture. They were encourag-
ed in their inadivity by the advantages they derived
from the* cocoa tree.
The cocoa tree, which grows fpontaneoufly in al-
moft every part of India, is a tree of a very beautiful
form, which rifes to the height of forty, and more
commonly fixty feet. It is fixed in the ground by a
great number of flender and fibrous roots. Its trunk,
which has a trifling bend towards the bafis, is ftraight
throughout the reft of its length, of a cylindrical form,
of moderate thicknefs, and marked with feveral circu-
lar inequalities, formed by the bafis of the leaves which
have fallen off from it. Its wood is of fo light and
Spongy a nature, that it is unfit for ihip-timber, or for
any building that requires folidity ; and the boats which
are made of it are brittle, and do not laft long. The
tuft is compofed of ten or twelve pinnated leaves, ta-
pered towards the top, very broad at their bafis, and
covered, in the infant ftate of the tree, with a kind of
network, of which fieves are made. Their centre cof-
ta, which is twelve feet long, is deeply furrowed on its
internal furface. The roots of houfes are covered in
with thefe leaves ; and they are ufed in making um-
brellas, fails, and fifhing-nets : the youngeft of them
may even ferve inftead of paper, and will receive the