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58 The trees were in rude health, and I do not doubt that every acre on the island would grow nuts with a trifling expenditure of labour in clearing and planting. The cocoanut palm must have been specially designed by Providence for South Sea Islanders, for after the first five years it takes care of itself, and will continue to bear nuts though its roots are choked by undergrowth. All that its owner has to do is to collect and split the fallen nuts, exposing their kernels to the sun, which shrivels the pulp until a shake will free it from the shell. A sack and a sturdy pair of shoulders will carry the dried kernel—now converted into copra—to the nearest store, where it is worth a shilling for every ten pounds. The traders are able to give this high retail price, because they pay in "trade," and not in money. Their profit is made out of the calico, etc., accepted by the native as the equivalent for the shilling. To even the laziest native an occasional short spurt of energy is pleasant, and his copra having provided him with a change of clothes, a tin of biscuits, and a gallon of lamp oil, he can lie on his back for the rest of the year. Copra, it must be remembered, has nothing to do with his daily subsistence, for which nature has provided in other ways. In