156 THE COCONUT TREE 



great pattimar, now getting under weigh for the 

 Persian Gulf with a cargo of coconuts, to the painter 

 of the dugout, " hodee," every yard of cordage about 

 them is made of imperishable coir. 



When the axe is at last laid to the old coconut 

 tree, a beam will fall to the earth sixty feet in length, 

 hard as teak and already rounded and smoothed. 

 True, you cannot saw it into planks, but no one will 

 complain of that in a village which does not own 

 a saw. It cleaves readily enough and straightly, 

 forming long troughs most useful for leading water 

 from the well to the plantation and for many other 

 purposes. It can also be chopped into lengths 

 suitable for the ridge poles of the hut, or for bridges to 

 span the deep ditches which drain the rice fields 

 or feed the salt pans. When out in quest of snipe 

 I have sometimes had to choose between crossing 

 by one of those bridges, innocent of even a handrail, 

 and wading through the black slough of despond 

 which it spanned. Choosing neither, I went home, 

 but the " Kolee" and the " Agree" trip over them 

 like birds, balancing household chattels on their 

 steady heads. 



We must not think, however, of the trunk as, 

 at the best, anything more than a by-product of 

 the coconut tree, whose head is more than its body. 

 Even while it lives its head is shorn once a year, for, 

 as fresh fronds push out and upward from the centre, 

 those of the outer circle get old and must be cut 

 away. And when one of those feathery, fern-like 



