2 6 Voyage of the Novara. 



Lis own personal experience, be very profitably grown for 

 tlie production of sugar, as also that tobacco, cotton, and 

 rice thrive in the most conspicuous manner. 



At present the cocoa-palm is the sole plant which is culti- 

 vated by the natives of Kar-Nicobar. It supplies them with 

 all they require for food and lodging, for house-furniture, or 

 for commerce with foreign peoples. The stem of this slender 

 column, from 60 to 100 feet in height, by about 2^ in thick- 

 ness, with its heavy green thatch of leaves, is very porous 

 and slight looking, but is yet stiff and strong enough to furn- 

 ish cross-beams, laths, and masts for huts and boats. The 

 fibres of the bark and of the nut-shells (known in commerce 

 as Coir) supply cordage and line ; the immense fan-shaped 

 leaf (3 feet wide by 12 to W in length) of the coronal serves 

 as a covering for the roof, as also for plaited work and bask- 

 ets. The juice of the nut, shaped like an Q^^-, yet somewhat 

 triangular, and about the size of the human head, prevents 

 the native from feeling even in the slightest degree the ab- 

 sence of available spring water, and is the sole beverage which 

 invigorates and refreshes the wayfarer through these forest 

 solitudes. Frequently did we experience a glow of thankful- 

 ness to all-bounteous Nature, as often as some hospitable 

 native handed to us for our refreshment, exhausted and thirsty 

 as we were after our fatiguing wanderings, a green cocoa-nut, 

 that vegetable spring of the tropical forest.* Tlie kernel of 



* It is customary to call the liquid contents of the green, unripe cocoa-nut by the 

 name of cocoa-nut milk ; but it is rather a clear, delightfully palatable water, which 



