The tree grows in several of the countries which border
that sea. It has been found in much greater abundance in some parts of
the East Indies, whence it has now become an article of export. Many
thousands of its pods are annually imported by the East India Company;
and, either because the fruit is richer in more southern climates, or for
some other reason, a great quantity of them are shipped for Venice and
Trieste, where there is distilled from them a liquor, which is supposed
to be an antidote to the plague, or at least useful in curing it. These
pods are about twenty inches long, and from half to three-quarters of an
inch in diameter. We call them pods for want of a term which would more
accurately describe them; but they are not flat, neither have they that
sort of hinge on one side, and slight fastening on the other, which
plainly show how the shells of peas and beans are to be opened. On the
contrary, these are round; but there are two opposite lines along them,
where the colour alone would induce any one to suppose the skin to be, as
it is, thinner than elsewhere. Having the fruit before us only in a dry
state, we can describe it in no other; but at present a knife could
scarcely be made to penetrate the thicker part, and does not very easily
make its way into the thinner.
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