lit CORDAGE AND CABLES OF COIR. 
for a Mangalore candy of Ameendevy and Kadamat Coir, has 
been twenty rupees and two annas (or twenty-three rupees per 
Calicut candy of 6401b). But for the Kiltan and Chetlat 
Coir, which are the best, an average of twenty rupees twelve 
annas and seven pie, or twenty-three rupees twelve annas per 
Calicut candy, is paid. Up to a.p. 1825-26, the Bombay and 
Bengal Governments took almost the whole of the Coir brought 
from these islands, and credited the Mangalore collectorate with 
twenty-five rupees per candy. The price has since fallen very 
much during the last twenty years. It has been frequently 
below the price paid to the islanders, and at best, has never 
yielded above twelve to twenty per cent. profit. The average 
imports of Coir have been from five hundred to six hundred 
candies. (Robinson.) 
Coir, besides its principal use as cordage, is much used in 
India in place of hair for stuffing mattresses, and is certainly 
preferable to those stuffed with ox- and cow-hair, which, I am 
informed, are still sent out to India. It is also employed for 
stuffing cushions for couches, and saddles. 
Dampier also mentions that the Spaniards in the South Seas 
make oakum to caulk their ships, from the husk of the Cocoa- 
nut, “‘ which is more serviceable than that made of hemp; and 
they say it will never rot.” He adds: “ I have been told by 
Capt. Knox, who wrote the relation of Ceylon, that in some 
places of India they make a sort of coarse cloth of this husk of 
the Cocoa-nut, which is used for sails. I myself have seen 
coarse sail-cloth made of such a kind of substance.” (‘A Voyage 
round the World.’) But this seems to be made from the fibrous 
substance found at the bottom of the leaves; for in Knox’s 
‘Ceylon, Suppl., p. 250, it is stated: ‘The filaments at the 
bottom of the stem may be manufactured into a coarse cloth 
called gunny, which is used for bags and similar purposes.” 
From the details which we have given respecting the pre- 
paration, and other points connected with Coir, it is evidently a 
substance of considerable value; and though there is some 
difficulty both in separating and in twisting this fibre, it seems 
long to have been applied to useful purposes—as cordage for 
the boats and shipping of the East. Some of the boats even, 
in Ceylon and on the Coromandel coast, are composed of planks 
sown together with Coir yarn. So Sir J. Maundeville: “In 
