THE MILK IN THE COCO-NUT 191 



nuts fringe the shore for miles and miles together ; and in 

 some parts, as in Travancore, they form the chief agri- 

 cultural staple of the whole country. ' The State has hence 

 facetiously been called Coconutcore,' says its historian ; 

 which charmingly illustrates the true Anglo-Indian notion 

 of what constitutes facetiousness, and ought to strike the 

 last nail into the coffin of a competitive examination system. 

 A good tree in full bearing should produce 120 coco-nuts 

 in a season ; so that a very small grove is quite sufficient 

 to maintain a respectable family in decency and comfort. 

 Ah, what a mistake the English climate made when it left 

 off its primitive warmth of the tertiary period, and got 

 chilled by the ice and snow of the Glacial Epoch down to its 

 present misty and dreary wheat-growing condition ! If it 

 were not for that, those odious habits of steady industry 

 and perseverance might never have been developed in our- 

 selves at all, and we might be lazily picking copra off our 

 own coco-palms, to this day, to export in return for the 

 piece-goods of some Arctic Manchester situated some- 

 where about the north of Spitzbergen or the New Siberian 

 Islands. 



Even as things stand at the present day, however, it is 

 wonderful how much use we modern Englishmen now 

 make in our own houses of this far Eastern nut, whose 

 very name still bears upon its face the impress of its 

 originally savage origin. From morning to night we never 

 leave off being indebted to it. We wash with it as old 

 brown Windsor or glycerine soap the moment we leave our 

 beds. We walk across our passages on the mats made 

 from its fibre. We sweep our rooms with its brushes, and 

 wipe our feet on it as we enter our doors. As rope, it ties 

 up our trunks and packages ; in the hands of the house- 

 maid it scrubs our floors ; or else, woven into coarse cloth, 

 it acts as a covering for bales and furniture sent by rail or 



