Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 2.djvu/228

 awarded to any one who, having found one of these nuts on the shore, failed to make it over to his sovereign. The kernel was the part supposed to possess miraculous medicinal qualities, and with it were mixed such anomalous ingredients as pounded antlers of deer, ebony-raspings, and red-coral dust.

At the present day, when these cocoa-nuts are exported from the Seychelles Islands, cups made from the shells are mounted by the wealthy natives of India with gold and precious stones; the religious mendicants of Ceylon also set a high value on the shells, and use them as alms-boxes to attract the contributions of the faithful.

The palm bearing the common cocoa-nut attains, in situations favorable to its growth, a height of from 60 to 80 feet, but rarely exceeds a diameter, at the base, of from one to two feet. The roughness of the bark is caused by the progressive falling off of the fronds, as the tree shoots upward. But this roughness and the crookedness of the tree (for a straight palm is rare indeed) are compensated by the beauty of the foliage of the crown. "Here," says Mr. Lord, "the graceful, fern-like leaves may be seen in every stage of development—the lower tiers drooping, those above spreading out feather-like, while the centre stands up plume-like in all its beauty." The nuts grow in clusters, and the number on one tree varies from 40 to 200 in different stages of development. The "spathes," which are thrown up among the young leaves of the cocoa-palm, and on which grow the blossoms, are often nearly four feet in length and six inches in circumference. In favorable seasons these spathes or plumes of flowers are shot forth every four or five weeks, and as the blossoms drop off the young nuts are formed, affording a store of food and drink all the year round. When the sap of the palm is sought for the manufacture of toddy, or some other products, the young fronds, together with the flower-spathe, are bound together with ligatures, in order to prevent the development of the blossoms; a puncture is then made at the foot of the spathe with a toddy-knife, and numerous taps administered to the part adjoining the cut, with the handle, to set the sap flowing; a chatty, or earthen pot, is then suspended in a suitable position to receive the cool, sweet juice of the tree.

To ascend the lofty palm various methods are employed, and often has the writer watched the agile natives swarming up with rapidity by inserting the great-toe into a series of notches cut into the bark. Another method is by casting a band round both tree and toddy-drawer, who then plants the soles of the feet against the trunk, and literally walks up, "hand over fist." They also traverse the space between the top of the trees on coir-ropes, thrown across from one to the other. Early in the morning, before the sun is up, the toddy-drawer with monkey-like agility ascends the tree, lowers down his well-filled pot, which is received by a companion, who replaces it by an empty one. From one to three quarts is the general result of one