1847.] 



Laccadlce Islands. 



Other exports The staple export from the islands, and the chief 



from the islands, source of the income is coir, but they have a fe\y 

 other sources M'hich may be well to mention here, before describing 

 the coir management on the coast of these, the export of the surplus 

 ^ ^ nuts is the chief. No accounts of this have been kept,and 



we must rely on the statements of the people, who seemed 

 ready enough to tell the probable exports of their neighbours though 

 willing to understate their own. From 7 to 10 Rupees per thousand 

 are obtained on the coast, but the nuts are small and the average 

 From Ameen- pi'ices may be taken at 8 Rupees. The people of 

 (levy. Ameendevy assert that their surplus is decreasing, this 



they attribute to the increase of population in an island in which the 

 good soil is all occupied, and consequently progressive cultivation 

 does not yield proportionate returns. The exports from this island 

 may be taken at one lac to 120,000 nuts per annum which, at 7 Ru- 

 pees per 1,100 (for 10 per cent, is always allowed for luck in these 

 sales) would be worth between 6 and 7 hundred Rupees. For this 

 rice is always brought home, and exchanges at 3 to 4 maunds of coir 

 per moodah of rice, making the profits nearly cent per cent to a man 

 who exporting his own nuts imports rice. This traffic is limited by 

 the home consumption, but is far the most lucrative from the islands, 

 and in Kiltan, where the home consumption is not so great, its profits 

 are so large and distributed among so few that the Islanders do not 

 feel the absolute necessity of applying themselves industriously to the 

 ^^.^^^ manufacture of coir. The nut exports of this island 



(Kiltan) average from IJ lac to 2 lacs per annum 

 valued from 1,000 to 1,300 Rupees. The exports from this island 

 F CI tl t increasing rapidly. From Chetlat the exports are 



within 50,000, and from Kadamat very trifling as yet 

 and not to be distinguished from those of Ameendevy. The princi- 

 pal market is in Malabar. In the Beeby's islands the Ryots are de- 

 prived of this by a monopoly under which only 4 Rupees per 1,000 

 is paid for nuts delivered on the coast. 



A few hundred mats are vearly exported and prized 



Mats. , , . / . n rr., 



on the coast, their texture uemg fine. They are made 

 of the cocoanut leaf cut out of the heart of the tree just before it un- 

 folds. This involves the loss of the bunch of fruit which comes out 

 with each leaf; and the value of the fruit and coir in our island checks 

 the manufacture of mats. Probably the leaves of cJwuk trees are 



