145 Many Indian Mouros, Christians and gentiles live in these villages; the Christians follow the teachings of Blessed Saint Thomas, whose church stands here. There is another one of Our Lady; they are devout Christians, they just lack doctrine, which I shall refer to later, because there are many living between here and Coromandel, who the Blessed St. Thomas left when he passed away in these parts. Heading along the sea coast beyond Cranganor, the King of Kochi’s land begins, and the lands of Calicut extend in the interior and to the North of them. This country, or rather, the whole of the Malabar coast is covered with tall palm-trees which are as tall as high cypress, their trunks are smooth and branchless and at the top, a large fruit called a coconut grows within the crown of branches; they make excellent use of this fruit, which is loaded onto many ships. The trees bear the same amount of this fruit every year without fail; these palm-trees sustain the whole population of Malabar, which never goes hungry thanks to them, even if many other foodstuffs are in short supply, because they provide ten or twelve things which are essential to man and which they use to their advantage throughout the entire year. First and foremost, they produce these coconuts, which when green are a sweet and pleasant fruit. One can extract milk from them, just as one does from an almond, and each of these green ones has a good pint of refreshing and appetising water, which is better than spring water; when dry, this water curdles in them to form a white fruit which is the size of an apple and also very sweet and tasty, and the coconut itself can be eaten dried and they make a lot of oil from it in presses like ours. The shell that surrounds the fruit can be used to make charcoal for the goldsmiths, who will not work with any other kind. The outside shell which sprouts a few threads is used to make all their coir and which sells well in many other places, and they take a must from the sap itself which they use to make wine, rather like brandy, and in such
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