11. The Milk in the Coco-Nut - Page 2

Under the mysterious name of copra (which most of us
have seen with awe described in the market reports as 'firm' or 'weak,'
'receding' or 'steady') it forms the main or only export of many Oceanic
islands, and is largely imported into this realm of England, where the
thicker portion is called stearine, and used for making sundry candles
with fanciful names, while the clear oil is employed for burning in
ordinary lamps. In the process of purification, it yields glycerine; and
it enters largely into the manufacture of most better-class soaps. The
fibre that surrounds the nut makes up the other mysterious article of
commerce known as coir, which is twisted into stout ropes, or woven into
coco-nut matting and ordinary door-mats. Brushes and brooms are also
made of it, and it is used, not always in the most honest fashion, in
place of real horse-hair in stuffing cushions. The shell, cut in half,
supplies good cups, and is artistically carved by the Polynesians,
Japanese, Hindoos, and other benighted heathen, who have not yet learnt
the true methods of civilised machine-made shoddy manufacture. The
leaves serve as excellent thatch; on the flat blades, prepared like
papyrus, the most famous Buddhist manuscripts are written; the long
mid-ribs or branches (strictly speaking, the leaf-stalks) answer
admirably for rafters, posts, or fencing; the fibrous sheath at the base
is a remarkable natural imitation of cloth, employed for strainers,
wrappers, and native hats; while the trunk, or stem, passes in carpentry
under the name of porcupine wood, and produces beautiful effects as a
wonderfully coloured cabinet-makers' material. These are only a few
selected instances out of the innumerable uses of the coco-nut palm.

Apart even from the manifold merits of the tree that bears it, the milk
itself has many and great claims to our respect and esteem, as everybody
who has ever drunk it in its native surroundings will enthusiastically
admit. In England, to be sure, the white milk in the dry nuts is a very
poor stuff, sickly, and strong-flavoured, and rather indigestible. But
in the tropics, coco-nut milk, or, as we oftener call it there, coco-nut
water, is a very different and vastly superior sort of beverage. At
eleven o'clock every morning, when you are hot and tired with the day's
work, your black servant, clad from head to foot in his cool clean white
linen suit, brings you in a tall soda glass full of a clear, light,
crystal liquid, temptingly displayed against the yellow background of a
chased Benares brass-work tray. The lump of ice bobs enticingly up and
down in the centre of the tumbler, or clinks musically against the edge
of the glass as he carries it along. You take the cool cup thankfully
and swallow it down at one