and soft sides, and full of liquid. When three
months old the coco is not much larger than
a goose's egg, and is perfectly smooth and
brilliantly green, aud the base of the nut is
inserted to the depth of about a third in a
reddish cup which supports it. The coco
reaches its full growth after seven months,
or dimensions varying from the size of the
head of a monkey to the size of the head of a
man. Soft fibres now run along it from the
base to the top; and the nut becoming too
heavy for its stalk begins to grow downward.
During five mouths more the coco hangs and
ripens. When a year old, the coco has
acquired the hard brown and fibrous appearance
familiar to us all, and falls upon the ground
with a noise which is heard from afar. The
wind may bring cocos down all through the
year, and the last remaining coco generally
entrains in its fall the stalk and the sheath.
Bernardin de Saint Pierre says, naïvely, the
sound which the cocos make in falling upon
the ground is intended "to call more than
one guest to come to his refreshment." The
sound is therefore, I suppose, of the kind of
the dinner-bell or breakfast-gong. Thomas
Hood may have had this notion in his mind
when he sung

There is a land of pure delight
Where omelets grow on trees,
And roasted pigs come crying out,
O! eat me if you please.

The food view of the coco-palm which the
numerous guests of the nut banquet
unanirnously take, gives an unrivalled interest to
every detail respecting the life of this wonderful
tree, from the long brown roots upward
to the fibrous monkey-nuts. I must not omit
in the pages of a journal devoted to aid the
conversations of the fireside to talk about the
cocos as we know them in Europe, and as
they come into our hands and households.

Coco bread and coco water, coco almonds,
coco butter, coco brushes, coco baskets, coco
brooms, coco bowls, coco boxes, coco bonnets,
coco cups, coco candles, coco carpets, coco
curtains, coco charcoal, coco cream, coco
cabbage, coco combs, coco fans, coco forks, coco
hats, coco jaggary, coco linen, coco lamps,
coco mats, coco masts, coco nets, coco oars,
coco oil, coco paper, coco pickles, coco pots,
coco pudding, coco ropes, coco spoons, coco
sandals, coco sauce, coco ships, coco torches,
coco wood, coco vinegar, coco arrack, coco
toddy! Nothing less than a treeful of monkeys
could call out the word coco often enough!
Cocos are both food and drink. The coco-palm
alone can furnish almost every thing necessary
for a home, and can absolutely and completely
supply everything needful for a ship. While,
in a drawing-room, after doffing their coco
bonnets, one lady may fan herself with a coco
fan; another may sit down upon a coco chair,
and write on a coco desk, upon coco paper, by
the brilliant light of coco oil in a coco lamp,
which stands upon a prettily inlaid coco table.
No wonder the authors of the oriental
romances had such wild and gorgeous fancies
when their imaginations were fed with such
marvels. The wonderful bottles of the wizards
of the stage are poor plagiarisms of the
prodigies of this single tree. After furnishing
kitchens and drawing-rooms, and after equipping
boats and ships, and after supplying
food and drink to infants and adults, and
hats and bonnets to gentlemen and ladies,
here is an enchanted thing which pours forth
by natural magic, milk and water, cream and
vinegar, and wine and arrack and toddy.

The geographical distribution of the palms
begins where the range of the cereals ceases,
and a similar domestic interest invests both
these families of plants. Like oats in
northern, and wheat in southern Europe,
palms are familiar household things on the
tropical shores—only surpassingly more useful,
more interesting, and more wonderful.
The coco-palms are blended with the whole
lives of these coast folks. When the Portuguese
were boasting about Portugal to certain
Indians, and telling them they ought to
go aud see it, the Indians asked:

"Does the coco-palm grow upon your
shores?"

The answer being in the negative, they
said:
" We shall not go there to seek our bread,
for this one tree is worth all Europe."

The Tahitians say that the first coco-palm
came from a human head which sprouted in
the earth. When the wise dark mothers
repeat this myth to the children around their
knees, a good meaning, a practical truth
may perhaps be detected sparkling in the
depths of their black eyes. There are no
seeds equal to human heads in fertility.
Hominal nuts are the most fecund of all
nuts. No doubt the cocos resemble much
more macaca maimon, and the name may
come from the maki mococo, but monkey
heads are all sterile. There is nothing like
the nominal nut for producing useful plants,
Tahitian fathers and mothers, pondering
upon this truth, would see clearly how the
success or failure of their children in life
depends upon the learning of this lesson.
The boy who mastered it best would become
the man with the most fruitful trees. The
English farmer has begun to have some
inklings of this truth since the epoch of free
trade, with excellent results in regard to the
cultivation of the cereals. Most certainly it
is the human head which germinates and
sprouts when the coco-palm yields bread and
wine and houses and ships.

When an infant is born in Malacca, the
father plants a coco-palm; which belongs
henceforth to the child. The young palm
begins to yield fruit at five years old, is in
full bearing about eleven, and enjoys its
maturity from the age of twenty to fifty; when
it ages slowly, reaching the term of from
ninety to a hundred years before it dies.
Naturally, the natives of the coco shores