188 THE MILK IN THE COCO-NUT 



The coco-nut palm intends the oil for the nourishment of 

 its own seedlinf^ ; the crab feloniously appropriates it and 

 stores it up under his capacious tail for future personal use ; 

 the Malay steals it again from the thief for his own pur- 

 poses ; and ten to one the Dutch or English merchant 

 beguiles it from him with sized calico or poisoned rum, and 

 transmits it to Europe, whore it serves to lighten our nights 

 and assist at our matutinal tub, to point a moral and adorn 

 the present tale. 



If, however, our coco-nut is lucky enough to escape the 

 robber-crabs, the pigs, and the monkeys, as well as to avoid 

 falling into the hands of man, and being converted into 

 the copra of commerce, or sold from a costermonger's 

 barrow in the chilly streets of ungenial London at a penny 

 a slice, it may very probably succeed in germinating after 

 the fashion I have already described, and pushing up its 

 head through the surrounding fohage to the sunlight above. 

 As a rule, the coco-nut has been dropped by its mother tree 

 on the sandy soil of a sea -beach ; and this is the spot it 

 best loves, and where it grows to the stateliest height. 

 Sometimes, however, it falls into the sea itself, and then 

 the loose husk buoys it up, so that it floats away bravely 

 till it is cast by the waves upon some distant coral reef or 

 desert island. It is this power of floating and surviving 

 a long voyage that has dispersed the coco-nut so widely 

 among oceanic islands, where so few plants are generally 

 to be found. Indeed, on many atolls or isolated reefs (for 

 example, on Keeling Island) it is the only tree or shrub 

 that grows in any quantity, and on it the pigs, the poultry, 

 the ducks, and the land crabs of the place entirely subsist. 

 In any case, wherever it happens to strike, the young coco- 

 nut sends up at first a fine rosette of big spreading leaves, 

 not raised as afterwards on a tall stem, but springing direct 

 from the ground in a wide circle, something like a very big 



