102 was THE COCOA-NUT KNOWN TO THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS? 
* But how about Asia, where such forests of these palms now gird the 
coast, and where they seem to grow with almost greater vigour than in 
America or Polynesia? Can that have been the cradle of the nut? 
There are weighty reasons for hesitating in a reply. The littoral parts 
of Ceylon, as every passenger by the overland mail will remember, are 
now densely covered with this tree, and it looks more at home there 
than I have ever seen it in any part of the world. Yet both tradition 
and history affirm that at one time the cocoa-nut was unknown in Cey- 
lon. Not far from Point de Galle there is carved in a rock the gigantic 
effigy of a native prince, Kottah Rayah, to whom is ascribed the dis- 
covery of the properties of the cocoa-nut, which before his time were 
unknown, as was also the tree. Moreover, the oldest chronicle of 
Ceylon, the * Marawansa, the historical value of which is now fully 
admitted, is absolutely silent about everything relating to the coeoa- 
nut, whilst it never fails to record, with tedious minuteness, every ac- 
cession of other fruit-trees made to the plantations by native princes. 
Now, is it probable that a fruit like the cocoa-nut, which is often tossed 
about the ocean for months without losing its germinating power from 
the effects of salt water,—is it probable that if such a fruit had been 
indigenous to any part of Asia, it should have reached Ceylon only in a 
comparatively recent historical period ? 
* These and similar puzzles having mes my attention ever since 
I brought out my * Popular History of Palms,’ I was somewhat pre- 
pared for the question, ‘Was the cocoa-nut known to the ancient 
Egyptians ?' Setting aside the arguments advanced in the * Parthenon’ 
for an affirmative answer, I should reply—There is no reason why it 
should not have been cultivated at Thebes more than three thousand 
years ago. Some varieties of the nut will grow far inland, and Thebes 
is not so very far distant from the sea to preclude such a contingency : 
the climate would also admit of it. Again, if the cocoa-nut could be 
drifted in modern times by the prevailing winds and marine currents 
from Western America to Eastern Asia, there is no reason why it 
should not have done the same three thousand years ago, when the dis 
tribution of land and water must have been pretty much the same as it 
is now, and the direction of the winds and currents was doubtless 
not different from what we find in our days. It is therefore not un- 
likely that the cocoa-nut, if known in Asia three thousand years ago» 
might have found its way to Egypt, even Solomon's flect having 
