THE MILK IN THE COCOA-NUT 51 



ons name of copra (which most of us have seen with awe described in 

 the market reports as " firm " or " weak," " receding " or " steady ") 

 it forms the main or only export of many oceanic islands, and is 

 largely imported into this realm of England, w^here the thicker por- 

 tion is called stearine, and used for making sundry candles with fanci- 

 ful names, while the clear oil is employed for burning in ordinary 

 lamps. In the process of purification, it yields glycerine ; and it en- 

 ters largely into the manufacture of most better-class soaps. The 

 fiber that surrounds the nut makes up the other mysterious article of 

 commerce known as coir, which is twisted into stout ropes, or woven 

 into cocoa-nut matting and ordinary door-mats. Brushes and brooms 

 are also made of it, and it is used, not always in the most honest fash- 

 ion, in place of real horse-hair, in stuflSng cushions. The shell, cut in 

 half, supplies good cups, and is artistically carv^ed by the Polynesians, 

 Japanese, Hindoos, and other benighted heathen, who have not yet 

 learned the true methods of civilized machine-made shoddy manufact- 

 ure. The leaves serve as excellent thatch ; on the flat blades, pre- 

 pared like papyrus, the most famous Buddhist manuscripts are writ- 

 ten ; the long mid-ribs or branches (strictly speaking, the leaf -stalks) 

 answer admirably for rafters, posts, or fencing ; the fibrous sheath 

 at the base is a remarkable natural imitation of cloth, employed for 

 strainers, wrappers, and native hats ; while the trunk, or stem, passes 

 in carpentry under the name of porcupine-wood, and produces beauti- 

 ful effects as a wonderfully-colored cabinet-maker's material. These 

 are only a few selected instances out of the innumerable uses of the 

 cocoa-nut palm. 



Apart even from the manifold merits of the tree that bears it, the 

 milk itself has many and great claims to our respect and esteem, as 

 everybody who has ever drunk it in its native surroundings will enthu- 

 siastically admit. In England, to be sure, the white milk in the dry nuts 

 is a very poor stuff, sickly, and strong-flavored and rather indigestible. 

 But in the tropics, cocoa-nut milk, or, as we often er call it there, cocoa- 

 nut water, is a very different and vastly superior sort of beverage. 

 At eleven o'clock every morning, when you are hot and tired with the 

 day's work, your black servant, clad from head to foot in his cool 

 clean white linen suit, brings you in a tall soda-glass full of a clear, 

 light, crystal liquid, temptingly displayed against the yellow back- 

 ground of a chased Benares brass-work tray. The lump of ice bobs 

 enticingly up and down in the center of the tumbler, or clinks musi- 

 cally against the edge of the glass as he carries it along. You take 

 the cool cup thankfully and swallow it down at one long draught ; 

 fresh as a May morning, pure as an English hill-side spring, delicate 

 as — well, as cocoa-nut water. None but itself can be its parallel. It 

 is certainly the most delicious, dainty, transparent, crystal drmk ever 

 invented. How did it get there, and what is it for ? 



In the early green stage at which cocoa-nuts are generally picked 



