VARIED USEFULNESS 155 



the utilities of the coconut are not exhausted. The 

 shell, neatly bisected, makes a pair of teacups, and 

 either of these, fitted with a wooden handle, makes 

 a handy spoon. Laurenco de Gama demands one 

 or two of these inexpensive spoons to complete the 

 furnishing of my kitchen. As for the obstinate 

 casing that wraps the coconut shell, it is an article 

 of commerce. It must first be soaked for some 

 months in a pit on the slimy bank of the backwater, 

 until all the stuff that holds it together in a stiff 

 and obdurate mass has rotted away and set free 

 those hard and smooth fibres which nothing can 

 rot. These, when thoroughly purged of the foul 

 black pollution in which they have sweltered so long, 

 will go out to all quarters of the world under the 

 name of " coir " to make indestructible door mats 

 and other indispensable things. It will penetrate 

 to every corner of India in which a white man 

 lives, to mat his verandahs and stuff his mattresses. 

 And who shall recount a tithe of its other uses ? 

 Of course, the nude man under the coconut tree 

 knows nothing of all this. He does without a 

 mattress, and has no use for a door mat. But he 

 cannot do without cordage, and if you took from 

 him his coconut fibre, life would almost stop. 

 Wherewith would he bind the rafters of his hut to 

 the beams, or tether the cow, or let down the bucket 

 into the well ? What would all the boats do that 

 traverse the backwater, or he at anchor in the bay, 

 or line the sandy beach ? From the cable of the 



