USE OF THE LEAVES 157 



fronds, toying with the breeze, comes crashing to 

 the ground, it is ten or twelve feet long, and consists 

 of a great backbone, as thick at the base as a man's 

 leg, with a close-set row of swords on either side, 

 about a yard in length. They are hard and tough, 

 but supple yet and of a shiny green colour ; but 

 they will turn to brown as they wither. 



Now observe that this gigantic, unmanageable- 

 looking leaf, like everything else about the coconut 

 tree, is almost a ready-made article, demanding no 

 machinery to turn it to account, except the " koita " 

 which hangs ever ready from the nude man's girdle. 

 With it he will cleave the backbone lengthwise, 

 and then, taking each half separately, he will simply 

 twist backwards every second sword and plait 

 them all into a mat two feet wide, eight or ten feet 

 long, and firmly bounded and held together on one 

 side by the unbreakable backbone. This is a 

 " jaolee," fighter than slates, or tiles, and more 

 handy than any form of thatch. You have just to 

 arrange your " jaolees " neatly on your bamboo 

 frame, each overlapping the one below it, then tie 

 them securely in their places with coir rope and 

 your roof is made for a year. 



There is yet another benevolence of the coconut 

 tree which I have left to the last, and the simple folk 

 of whom I am trying to write with fellow feeling 

 would certainly have named it first. I ought to 

 refer to it as a curse : they, without qualm or 

 question, call it a blessing. Let me try to describe 



