Oro, the great god of
their mythology, was declared in the cocoa-nut log from which his
image was rudely carved. Upon one of the Tonga Islands, there stands
a living tree revered itself as a deity. Even upon the Sandwich
Islands, the cocoa-palm retains all its ancient reputation; the
people there having thought of adopting it as the national emblem.

The cocoa-nut is planted as follows: Selecting a suitable place, you
drop into the ground a fully ripe nut, and leave it. In a few days, a
thin, lance-like shoot forces itself through a minute hole in the
shell, pierces the husk, and soon unfolds three pale-green leaves in
the air; while originating, in the same soft white sponge which now
completely fills the nut, a pair of fibrous roots, pushing away the
stoppers which close two holes in an opposite direction, penetrate
the shell, and strike vertically into the ground. A day or two more,
and the shell and husk, which, in the last and germinating stage of
the nut, are so hard that a knife will scarcely make any impression,
spontaneously burst by some force within; and, henceforth, the hardy
young plant thrives apace; and needing no culture, pruning, or
attention of any sort, rapidly advances to maturity. In four or five
years it bears; in twice as many more, it begins to lift its head
among the groves, where, waxing strong, it flourishes for near a
century.

Thus, as some voyager has said, the man who but drops one of these
nuts into the ground may be said to confer a greater and more certain
benefit upon himself and posterity than many a life's toil in less
genial climes.

The fruitfulness of the tree is remarkable. As long as it lives it
bears, and without intermission. Two hundred nuts, besides
innumerable white blossoms of others, may be seen upon it at one
time; and though a whole year is required to bring any one of them to
the germinating point, no two, perhaps, are at one time in precisely
the same stage of growth.

The tree delights in a maritime situation. In its greatest perfection,
it is perhaps found right on the seashore, where its roots are
actually washed. But such instances are only met with upon islands
where the swell of the sea is prevented from breaking on the beach by
an encircling reef. No saline flavour is perceptible in the nut
produced in such a place. Although it bears in any soil, whether
upland or bottom, it does not flourish vigorously inland; and I have
frequently observed that, when m