BOTANY OF THE LACCADIVES. 
65 
they occur, but the people misinformed him concerning so many of the other 
islands, that till there is direct evidence, the point must remain doubtful. 
The question whether the appearance of the coco-nut in this archipelago 
preceded that of man, or if the first settlers there did not rather take the 
coco-nut with them, is one that it is somewhat difficult to answer. The species 
is pretty certainly indigenous in the Malay countries and, perhaps, Polynesia, 
and seems to have spread thence to India, the Mascarene Islands and 
Africa. It occurs also in America, but the question—which has been seriously 
discussed—as to whether it found its way to the New World from the Old or vice 
versa, has not yet been satisfactorily answered. The introduction of the coco¬ 
nut into Ceylon at ah events has been in aU probability a dehberate act, and, as 
M. de Candolle reminds us {Origin of Cultivated Plants, p. 435), at a period so 
recent as to be almost historical. That the geographical extension of the tree is 
largely due to human agency does not admit of question, but that it has been in 
every place where it occurs intentionally introduced, it is neither possible nor 
necessary to beheve. Its fruits are highly capable of ocean-distribution and form 
a constant featime of ocean-drifts on tropical shores, and it is one of the earliest 
species to appear on newly emerged coral or volcanic tropical islands. 
As regards the Laccadives, if man did not first settle there on account of 
coco-nut trees being aheady present, it is difficult to conceive what he went 
there for ; the sirnface is not adequate, nor are the conditions favourable for 
extensive cereal or pulse cultivation, and as for a certain period of the year 
the people have to take their boats away from the islands to places of safety on the 
Malabar Coast, it is clear that fishing could never have been a general or con¬ 
stant industry among them. On the other hand, the coco-nut is m the strictest 
sense a cultivated species on all the inhabited islands, and is a planted species 
even in Bitra, which, on account of its want of a water-supply, is only a visited 
island ; and though in Bangaro it is not cultivated or planted, this island may 
have only been stocked by nuts from Akati, the main island on the same atoll 
subsequently to a deliberate introduction of the species into Akati itself. 
Still the state of affaus in Bangdro proves that the tree here can be, at 
least locally, sea-dispersed ; and taking into account the uninviting appear¬ 
ance that the islands must offer, were they destitute of coco-nuts, one cannot 
but think it probable that the species reached the archipelago independently 
of human agency and prior to human settlement, while the necessity for 
constant renewal and, as the population increased, for planting to the greatest 
advantage, has insured that now in all the inhabited islands none but cultivated 
trees are to be found. 
In most of the islands it is deemed necessary to raise the seedling coco-nuts 
with care and attention till they are a year old, when they are transplanted and 
365 
