Note 17 — Relation of the Filipinas Islands

But the most useful tree of all is the palm—not that which bears the date, for they do not have that species, but those which bear cocoanuts, of the size of an orange. Those nuts are filled with a very sweet liquor, which is very good to drink. They make wine, vinegar, and honey of it; and when that fruit becomes dry as it ripens, that liquor changes into white meat harder than an almond. It is from that meat that oil is extracted and a milk resembling that extracted from almonds. The cocoanut has two coverings. The first, which is less hard, is used for tinder when dried; also for the rigging and smaller cordage of the ships, or as tow for calking them. The other covering is harder, and is used for drinking vessels, or as dishes in which to prepare their food. The palm-leaves are the tiles with which their houses are thatched. The trunks of the same trees are used to support the houses, and in making the pillars. They have one other tree which is no less useful to them, for it serves them as a perpetual spring, and furnishes water to an entire village—which, being located on a very high and dry site, has no other water than what they get from that tree by making incisions in its trunk, and in its largest branches; for a clear sweet water flows out of it. The trees of those islands are always green, and there are only two species that shed their leaves, one called batelan,17 and the other dabdas.