ry purposes, and is purer
and more palatable than that of the coco-nut. The kernels, mixed up
with a little sago meal, are made into cakes and eaten as bread.

THE COCO-NUT PALM.

This palm (_Cocos nucifera_) is one of the most useful of the
extensive family to which it belongs, supplying food, clothing,
materials for houses, utensils of various kinds, rope and oil; and
some of its products, particularly the two last, form important
articles of commerce. An old writer, in a curious discourse on palm
trees, read before the Royal Society, in 1688, says, "The coco nut
palm is alone sufficient to build, rig, and freight a ship with bread,
wine, water, oil, vinegar, sugar, and other commodities. I have sailed
(he adds) in vessels where the bottom and the whole cargo hath been
from the munificence of this palm tree. I will take upon me to make
good what I have asserted." And then he proceeds to describe and
enumerate each product. Another recent popular writer speaks in
eloquent terms of the estimation in which it is held, and the various
uses to which it is applied.

"Its very aspect is imposing. Asserting its supremacy by an erect and
lofty bearing, it may be said to compare with other trees, as man with
inferior creatures. The blessings it confers are incalculable. Year
after year the islander reposes beneath its shade, both eating and
drinking of its fruit; he thatches his hut with its boughs, and weaves
them into baskets to carry his food; he cools himself with a fan
plaited from the young leaflets, and shields his head from the sun by
a bonnet of the leaves; sometimes he clothes himself with the
cloth-like substance which wraps round the base of the stalks, whose
elastic rods, strung with filberts, are used as a taper. The larger
nuts, thinned and polished, furnish him with a beautiful goblet; the
smaller ones with bowls for his pipes; the dry husks kindle his fires;
their fibres are twisted into fishing-lines and cords for his canoes.
He heals his wounds with a balsam compounded from the juice of the
nut; and with the oil extracted from its pulp embalms the bodies of
the dead. The noble trunk itself is far from being valueless. Sawn
into posts, it upholds the islander's dwelling; converted into
charcoal, it cooks his food; and, supported on blocks of stones, rails
in his lands. He impels his canoe through the water with a paddle of
the wood, and goes to battle with clubs and spears of the same hard
material. In P