COCOA-NUTS. 217 



Who has not read of those wondrous coral islands where 

 the cocoa-palm is ever the first, and oftentimes the only, 

 tree to spring up amidst the reeds? 



Many a noble ship, many a precious life has been saved 

 by this ocean-loving palm, which, nestling down upon some 

 wave-hidden reef, sends its tall stem heavenward, flourish- 

 ing even while the sea washes over its base, and waving its 

 feathery leaves aloft in warning to the mariner, that he 

 may avoid the danger which else must have proved fatal to 

 him and his barque. 



Familiar to many of our readers, doubtless, is an in- 

 stance of this high use of the cocoa-nut palm, which lies 

 " near unto our home." 



In the harbor of Baracoa, at the eastern end of the 

 island of Cuba, rises a mountain known as the ''Anvil 

 Mountain," because of its resemblance to an anvil, as seen 

 against the horizon by an incoming vessel. Upon the very 

 summit of this mountain towers aloft a solitary cocoa-nut 

 tree ; the first object seen by the sailor as he nears the east- 

 ern end of the island, and as anxiously w r atched for as ever 

 is beacon or light-ship. No one knows how old it is, nor 

 who planted it there, but there it has been since the earli- 

 est records, and great will be the dismay among the way- 

 farers of the sea when the familiar "Anvil cocoa-nut" 

 is seen no more looming up grandly against the horizon. 



Yet, dweller by the sea as it is, and basking in the warm 

 sunshine, the cocoa-nut loves not all tropical shores alike ; 

 with one exception, that of St. Jago, of the Cape de Verd 

 islands, it is never found upon volcanic shores, and in the 

 Sandwich Islands it grows, but does not flourish with its 

 pristine vigor ; like an exile in a foreign land, it languishes 

 as though weary of life. The tree is smaller and less 

 hardy, and the fruit diminutive in comparison with its 

 brethren of Ceylon, an island which it dearly loves. 



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