Page:Scidmore--Java the garden of the east.djvu/111

Rh Archipelago, and groves have been successfully planted in Ceylon, so that there is hope that this incomparable fruit may finally be acclimated in the West Indies, and fast steamers make it known in New York and London. The mangosteen is tinned for export at Singapore; but the faded segments floating in tasteless syrup give one little idea of this peerless fruit in its natural state.

It had been my particular haunting dream of the tropics to have a small black boy climb a tree and throw cocoanuts down to me; and while we sat admiring the rank beauty of the deserted garden around Raden Saleh's tomb, one afternoon, the expression of the wish caused a full-grown Malay to saunter across the grass, and, cigarette in mouth, walk up the straight palm-stem as easily as a fly. The Malay toes are as distinct members as the fingers, and almost as long; and clasping the trunk with the sole of the foot at each leaf-scar, that Malay climber gripped the rough palm-stem as firmly with his toes as with claws or extra fingers. It was so easily and commonly done that palm-tree climbing soon ceased to be any more of a feat to watch than berry-picking; but the first native who walked up a palm-tree for my benefit held me rapt, attentive, while he picked the big nuts and sent twenty-pounders crashing down through the shrubbery. We paid him well, and carried two of the nuts home with us; and from them the servant brought us tall glasses, or schooners, filled with the clear, colorless, tasteless milk, and a plate full of a white, leathery stuff—tough, tasteless too, and wilted, like cold omelet without eggs—the saddest sort of a feast of fresh cocoanuts.