softens it with cocoa-nut milk; it is sipped by
the light of a lamp, constructed from a cocoa-
nut shell, and fed by cocoa-nut oil. His doors,
his windows, his shelves, his chairs, the water-
gutter under the eaves, all are made from the
wood of the tree. His spoons, his forks, his
basins, his mugs, his salt-cellars, his jars, his
child's money-box, are all constructed from
the shell of the nut. Over his couch when
born, and over his grave when buried, a
bunch of cocoa-nut blossoms is hung, to charm
away evil spirits.

This palm is assiduously cultivated in
Ceylon, in topes, or gardens; and it was long
believed that the rude native system of culture
was the best; but experience has shown the
fallacy of this opinion. Hence, the Cingalese
continue to find the manual labour, but the
Englishman provides skill and implements.

There is a good road to within a couple of
miles of the plantation I am about to describe;
so that the visitor has little difficulty in
performing this much of the journey. The
remaining two miles lies through a sandy
tract of very flat and rather uninteresting
country. Here and there, amidst a maze of
paddy fields, areca-nut topes, and patches of
low thorny jungle, are dotted little white-
walled huts. They are much cleaner than
any such near the towns of Ceylon; attached
to each is a small slip of ground, rudely
fenced, and half-cultivated, with a few sweet
potatoes, some chillies, and a little tobacco
and fine grain. It was midday when I started,
on foot, to this estate. The sun was blazing
above in unclouded glory. Under the shade
of a bread-fruit tree the owner of the first hut
I got to, was dozing and chewing betel-nut,
evidently tasting, in anticipation, the bliss of
Buddha's paradise. The wife was pounding up
something for curry; the children were by
her side—the boys smoking tiny cheroots, the
girls twisting mats. It was fortunate for me
that the sandy path was overshadowed by
jungle-trees, or my progress would have been
impossible. Not a breath of air was stirring
amidst that dense mass of vegetation; not a
twig or a leaf could be persuaded to move;
the long paddy (young rice) stalks glittered
and sparkled in their watery resting-places, as
though they were made of the purest
burnished silver. The buffaloes had taken to
their noon-day watering-places. The birds
were evidently done up, and were nowhere to
be seen; the beetles crawled feebly over the
cooler shrubs, but they could not get up a
single hum or a buzz amongst them all; even
the busy little ants perspired, and dropped
their lilliputian loads. Well, the dry ditch
and thorny fence that form the boundary and
protection of the estate were at last reached,
and the little gate and watch-hut were
passed. The watcher, or sascoryn, was a
Malsy, moustachioed and fierce; for the
natives of the country can rarely be depended
on as protectors of property against their
fellow-villagers. A narrow belt of jungle,
trees, and shrubs had been left quite round
the plantation, to assist in keeping out cattle
and wild animals, which are frequently very
destructive to a young cocoa-nut estate, in
spite of armed watchers, ditches, and fences.
Passing through this belt, I found on entering
an entirely new scene: before and around
me waved, gracefully, the long shining
leaves of three hundred acres of cocoa-nut
palms, each acre containing, on an average,
eighty trees. It was, indeed, a beautiful and
interesting sight. Two-thirds of these trees
were yielding ample crops, though only in
their ninth year; in two years more they
will, generally, be in full bearing. Unlike the
rudely planted native garden, this estate had
been most carefully laid down; the young
plants had all been placed out at regular
intervals and in perfectly straight lines, so
that, looking over the estate in either
direction, the long avenues presented one
unbroken figure, at once pleasing to the eye, and
easy of access. But, if these interminable
masses of palms appeared a lovely picture,
when regarded at some little distance, how
much was their beauty heightened on a nearer
inspection! Walking close under the shadow
of their long and ribbon-like leaves, I could
see how thickly they were studded with
golden-green fruit, in every stage of growth.
The sight was absolutely marvellous: were
such trees, so laden, painted by an artist, his
production would, in all probability, be
pronounced unnatural. They appeared more
like some fairy creations, got up for my
especial amusement; resembling nearly those
gorgeous trees which, in my youth, I
delighted to read about in the "Arabian
Nights," growing in subterranean gardens,
and yielding precious stones. They hung
in grape-like clusters around the crest of
the tree; the large golden ripe nuts below,
smaller and greener fruit just above them,
followed by scores of others in all stages,
from the blossom-seed to the half-grown;
it was impossible to catch a glimpse of
the stem, so thickly did the fruit hang on
all sides. I made an attempt to count
them:—"thirty—fifty—eighty—one
hundred"—I could go no further; those little
fellows near the top, peeping up like so
many tiny dolls' heads, defied my most careful
numerations; but, I feel confident, there must
have been quite two hundred nuts on that one
palm. Above the clusters of rich fruit were
two feather-like flowers, white as snow, and
smooth and glossy as polished marble; they
had just burst from their sheaths; and a
more delicate, lovely picture could scarcely
be imagined.

A cocoa-nut tree in a native Cingalese
tope, will sometimes yield fifty nuts in twelve
months; but the average of them seldom
give more than twenty-five in the year. It is,
therefore, very evident that European skill
may be employed beneficially on this
cultivation, as well as on any other.