Page:Life in India or Madras, the Neilgherries, and Calcutta.djvu/364

316 The palmyra-palm grows along the whole Indian coast, but abounds most in the southeastern part of the peninsula. From Madura to Cape Comorin on the south, and from the seaboard many miles inland, the sandy soil produces little beyond groves of this tree; a caste called Shanars, numbering some hundreds of thousands, subsist almost entirely upon its products. An interest attaches to them and their mode of life from the fact that by far the most successful efforts of missionaries in Southern India have been those made for their benefit.

The palmyra lacks the grace of the cocoanut; its branchless trunk rises stifly to a height of thirty or forty feet, and terminates in a cluster of fan-shaped leaves, each four feet in diameter, and spreading from a stout leaf-stalk into a circular leaf, ending in pointed rays like the fingers of the hand. From these leaves palm-leaf fans are made by trimming and binding the edges of the leaf, the stalk serving as a handle. These fans are sometimes of a very large size, and are waved by an attendant who stands at a little distance from his master, grasping the handle with both hands. In journeying through Southern India, you will fre-