~No. 57. — 1906.] coconut cultivation. 



57 



on the shore those that each inclined to load, and even then 

 there were many over."* 



The next reference we need quote is from the record 

 of his experiences by the first Englishman who visited 

 Ceylon. This was Ralph Fitch, who touched at Colombo in 

 March, 1589, on his way from Bengal to Cochin, and who 

 reports in the account of his travels : " This Ceylon is a 

 brave land, very fruitful and fair; but by reason of con- 

 tinual war with the king thereof, all things are very dear. 

 The provision of victuals for the Portuguese cometh out of 

 Bengal every year." He speaks of the people as " black and 

 little," and adds : " Their houses are very little, made of 



* In " The Thousand and One Nights" or " Arabian Nights' Entertain- 

 ment " (Lane's translation), written about 1475-1515 a.d., thero are some 

 amusing references to coconuts, no doubt gained from the experience of 

 Mohammedan travellers in previous centuries. One occurs in the " Fourth 

 Voyage " of Es Sindebad of the Sea, where he and companions got cast away 

 among " a magian people " whose king was a ghoul, eating human flesh ; 

 in addition to bringing strange food to fatten and stupefy them, they gave 

 them "coconut oil" to drink, and also anointed their bodies with the 

 oil, and all perished save Es Sindebad, who loathing, could not eat this food, 

 and who got so emaciated as not to be worth the eating. Secondly, in 

 the "Fifth Voyage," after his experience of "The Old Man of the Sea," on 

 getting to the City of Apes, he was befriended by a man who gave him a 

 bag to fill with pebbles and to go forth with a party, all similarly laden, to a 

 wide valley having lofty trees which no one could climb, and also many 

 apes which at the sight of the strangers ran up the trees, evidently coconut 

 palms. For, on the men pelting the apes with the stones, the apes responded 

 by plucking off the nuts and flinging them at the men, and in this way the 

 latter collected a great quantity of coconuts ; and Es Sindebad did this for 

 many days until he was able to sell a large quantity of nuts, " the price of 

 which became a large sum in my possession." (To do this, the price must 

 have been very different from that recorded for the Maldives 100 years 

 later of 400 coconuts per larin, or equivalent of 8^. sterling.) This country 

 from the context must have been the Malay Peninsula or Sumatra ; for, 

 in returning to the Persian G-ulf it is told they passed "by an island in 

 which are cinnamon and pepper " — evidently Ceylon. And in the next or 

 " Sixth Voyage," Es Sindebad, after an extraordinary fashion, came to 

 " Sarandeeb " (the Arabic name for Ceylon), which he describes as to 

 situation and area very fairly, and mentions much about its minerals and 

 gems and lofty mountains and trees with spices, but not a single reference 

 to coconut or any palm all the time he was there ; while, finally, the king 

 sent him away with rich gifts (gems, &c.) to his own king, Kaleefah 

 Haroun Er-Rashud. 



