II 



THE OCEAN SHORE 



O, 



'N all the shores of the tropic seas the coconut-palms bow in 

 the wind. 



A lovelier background for the breakers seething on the beach 

 cannot be imagined. For the coconut-palm is like a child of the 

 ocean. The bluish-green of the crown of gigantic leaves is in tone 

 with the sea, and as in the many-hued sea one colour flows into 

 another, so it is in the leafy crown of the coconut-palm, as the 

 sunlight plays upon the leaves; now the yellow of the ribs pre- 

 dominates, now the dark green of the leaves in shadow, and now the 

 vivid green of the sunlit foliage ; and the white foam-crests of the 

 breakers find an echo in the flashing lights of the glossy upper 

 surfaces of the fronds (Plate 8). 



The movement of the waves and the soughing of the trade-wind 

 are repeated by the lofty shafts, each of which leans at a different 

 angle, and in the incessant play of the graceful fronds one seems to 

 hear an echo of the crashing breakers. It is as though the strings of 

 a harp were vibrating in sympathy with the seething of the ocean. 



Of our own trees those that remind me most of the coconut-palms 

 are the pines, familiar to me from my childhood, that sigh and 

 rustle on the dunes of the Baltic. They too have tall, bare trunks, 

 which glow in the evening sun. This memory endeared the coconut- 

 palms to me when first I encountered them in Ceylon. It was not 

 until I went to Brazil that I fully realized the beauty of these trees ; 

 I was never tired of gazing at the palms, and delighting in their 

 noble bearing. And this example taught me that the beauties of 

 Nature are disclosed only to engrossed contemplation; many a 

 traveller finds fault with things that he would be as ready to praise 

 had he the time and patience and energy to consider them more 

 thoroughly. 



Even in its mode of propagation the coconut-palm is adapted 

 to the sea. The nut, as large as a man's head, is enclosed in a brown 

 husk, and under this is a dense layer of fibres, which serves as a sort 

 of lifebuoy, in which it may float far oversea without being injured 

 by the force of the waves. For the real nut lies embedded in the 

 fibrous husk, and itself consists of a thick and very hard shell, in 

 which three holes may be perceived, and a kernel. Two of these 

 38 



