i.6 Coco-nuts The Consols of the East 



corners, where even, with the most carefully- 

 | organized service, the steamers either cannot 

 go, or where it would not pay them to go on 

 account of the smallness of the lots which it 

 would be possible to bring together. We once 

 made a coasting trip in a Dutch mail-boat 

 through the Lesser Moluccas, during which 

 we visited altogether thirty-seven different 

 ports en route. The capacity of the boat was 

 only about 850 tons, yet at the end of the 

 voyage she was not quite full, although there 

 was not a port we touched at but which 

 furnished its quota of copra, besides other 

 produce taken on board. Such trade copra 

 is by no means the clean, wholesome, and 

 pleasant-smelling stuff we see in Ceylon and 

 in India. It is rank, pungent, and covered 

 with mould ; it certainly is not fit for articles 

 intended for human consumption, and no 

 amount of purification can really make it so. 



Throughout a century or more no one 

 thought it worth while to alter this, and the 

 copra was accepted as it came to hand, and 

 shipped as received. At the consuming cen- 

 tres such material was used without much 

 more than an occasional grumble when it 

 arrived at home in too putrid a state to be 

 any good at all for any purpose whatsoever. 



Intense competition and demand spurred 

 first of all the merchants in Ceylon, and on 

 the Malabar Coast in India, to something 

 better. This need of improvement became 



