160 THE COCONUT TREE 



hot water, sugar and limes, and they are " well 

 content." After many years I see the few of them 

 who still survive foregathered again in the old 

 country, and one proposes to have a good brew of 

 toddy for auld lang syne. If real toddy spirit 

 cannot be had, what of that ? Whisky is found to 

 take very kindly to hot water and sugar and limes, 

 and the old folks at home and the neighbours and 

 the minister himself pronounce a most favourable 

 verdict on " toddy." In short, it has come to stay. 

 But we must return to the liquor in the Bhun- 

 daree's gourd. It is the rich sap which should 

 have gone to the forming of coconuts, which is 

 intercepted by cutting off the point of the fruit 

 stalk and tying on an earthen pot. If the pot is 

 clean, the juice, when it is taken down in the morn- 

 ing, not fermented yet but just beginning to sparkle 

 with minute bubbles, not too sweet and not so oily 

 as the milk of the coconut, is nectar to a hot and 

 thirsty soul. No summer drink have I drunk so 

 innocently restorative after a hot and toilsome 

 march on a broiling May morning. But the Bhun- 

 daree will not squander it so : he takes care not to 

 clean his pots, and when he takes them down in 

 the morning the liquor is already foaming like 

 London stout. Not that he means to drink it 

 himself, for you must know that, by the rules of 

 his caste, he is a total abstainer, being a Bhundaree, 

 whose function is to draw toddy, not to drink it. 

 This is one of those profound institutes by which 



