POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
371 
sixty or seventy feet^ with only a tuft of leaves^ and a 
number of bunches of fruity on the top | yet the natives 
gather the fruit with comparative ease. A little boy 
strips off a piece of bark from a purau^ branch, and 
fastens it round his feet, leaving a space of four or five 
inches between them, and then, clasping the tree, he 
vaults up its trunk with greater agility and ease 
than a European could ascend a ladder to an equal 
elevation. When they gather a bunch at a time, they 
lower them down by a rope | but when they pluck the 
fruit singly, they cast them on the ground. In throw¬ 
ing down the nuts, they give them a whirling motion, 
that they may fall on the point, and not on the side, 
whereby they would be likely to burst. 
The cocoa-nut oil is procured from the pulp, and is 
prepared by grating the kernel of the old nut, and 
depositing it in a long wooden trough, usually the trunk 
of a tree hollowed out. This is placed in the sun 
every morning, and exposed during the day | after a few 
days the grated nut is piled up in heaps in the trough, 
leaving a small space between each heap. As the oil 
exudes, it drains into the hollows, whence it is scooped 
in bamboo canes, and preserved for sale or use. After 
the oil ceases to collect in the trough, the kernel is put 
into a bag, of the matted fibres, and submitted to the 
action of a rude lever press ; but the additional quantity 
of oil, thus obtained, is inferior in quality to that pro¬ 
duced by the heat of the sun. 
In addition to these advantages, the shells of the large 
old cocoa-nuts are used as water-bottles, the largest of 
which will hold a quart; they are of a black colour, 
frequently highly polished, and, with care, last a 
number of years. All the cups and drinking vessels of 
