156 MARKETING COCONUTS AND COPRA 



up : first comes the tiny native prahu with a China- 

 man or Arab as owner. They go from house to 

 house, as it were, and collect their little cargo of 

 twenty to a hundred bags of copra. These tong- 

 kangs take the produce to the nearest port where 

 the coasting steamer calls, from whence the buyer 

 collects and consigns the bulked lot, which he has 

 purchased from many native vessels, to the big 

 emporium at Singapore, Batavia, or other large 

 centres, and from these ports sail the ocean levia- 

 thans with the cargoes of many coasters swallowed 

 up in their enormous maws. This manifold inter- 

 trading method of handling the copra will probably 

 never change in thousands of little inlets and creeks, 

 and nooks and corners, throughout the South Seas, 

 where even, with the most carefully- organised 

 service, the big steamers can scarcely ever go." 



The copra collected in this manner is smoke- 

 dried, and is usually of a grade that is only fit for 

 soap-making and other similar purposes. 



The nuts are sold entire, in their husks or husked, 

 as the case may be, the larger proportion being used 

 to make copra. Most of the coconuts and copra im- 

 ported into Europe and America are shipped from 

 the Dutch East Indies, Manilla and Cebu, the Straits 

 and Singapore, Ceylon and Malabar, the principal 

 ports of arrival being, in their order of importance, 

 Marseilles, London, Liverpool, New York, Ham- 

 burg, Rotterdam and Antwerp. The West Indian 



