548 OLEAGINOUS PLANTS. 



battle with clubs and spears of the same hard material. In Pagan 

 Tahiti, a coco-nut branch was the symbol of regal authority. Laid 

 upon the sacrifice in the temple, it made the offering sacred ; and 

 with it the priests chastised and put to flight the evil spirits 

 which assailed them. The supreme majesty of Oro, the great god 

 of their mythology, was declared in the coco-nut log from which 

 his image was rudely carved. Upon one of the Tonga Islands 

 there stands a living tree, revered itself as a deity. Even upon 

 the Sandwich Islands the coco palm retains all its ancient repu- 

 tation ; the people there having thought of adopting it as the na- 

 tional emblem." 



Besides the foregoing and following uses, I am aware of 

 several scents and spirituous liquors being procured from the 

 flowers and pulp of the coco-nut. 



This palm tree .is one of the finest objects in nature. Its 

 stem is tall and slender, without a branch ; and at the top are seen 

 from ten to two hundred coco-nuts, each as large as a man's head : 

 over these are the graceful plumes, with their green gloss, 

 and beautiful fronds of the nodding leaves. Nothing can exceed 

 the graceful majesty of these intertropical fruit trees, except the 

 various useful purposes to which the tree, the leaf, and the nut 

 are applied by the natives. 



1. The stem is used for Bridges, posts, beams, rafters, paling, 

 ramparts, loop-holes, walking sticks, water butts, bags (the upper 

 cuticle), sieves in use for arrowroot. 



2. The coco-nut is used for milk, a delicious drink ; meat from 

 the scraped nut, for various kinds of food ; jelly, Jcora, pulp, nut, 

 oil, excellent and various food for man, beast, and fowl. 



The shell for vessels to drink out of, water pitchers, lamps, 

 funnels, fuel, panga (for a game) . 



The fibre for sinnet, various cordage, bed stuffing, thread for 

 tying combs, scrubbing-brushes, girdle (ornamental), whisk for flies, 

 medicines, various and useful. 



3. The leaf is used for Thatch for houses, lining for houses, 

 takapau (mats), baskets (fancy and plain), fans, palalafa (for sham 

 fights), combs (very various), bedding (white fibre), tafi (brooms), 

 kubatse (used in printing), mama (candles), screen for bedroom, 

 waiter's tray. 



Here are no less than forty-three uses of which we know some- 

 thing ; and the natives know of others to which they can apply 

 this single instance of the bounty of the G-od of nature, For 

 house and clothes, for food and medicine, the coco-nut palm is their 

 sheet anchor, as well as their ornament and amusement, who dwell 

 in the torrid zone. 



This fine palm, which always forms a prominent feature in 

 tropical scenery, is a native of Southern Asia. It is spread by 

 cultivation through almost all the intertropical regions of the Old 

 and New Worlds ; but it is cultivated nowhere so abundantly as 

 in the Island of Ceylon, and those of Sumatra, Java, &c. On the 

 shores of the Red Sea it advances to Mokha, according to N iebuhr ; 



