about a month.

When first drawn the toddy has the appearance of thin milk and water,
with a combined flavor of milk and soda-water, with a tinge of
cocoa-nut. It is then very pleasant and refreshing, but in a few hours
after sunrise a great charts takes place, and the rapidity of the
transition from the vinous to the acetous fermentation is so great that
by midday it resembles a poor and rather acid cider. It now possesses
intoxicating properties, and the natives accordingly indulge in it to
some extent; but from its flavor and decided acidity I should have
thought the stomach would be affected some time before the head.

From this fermented toddy the arrack is procured by simple distillation.

This spirit, to my taste, is more palatable than most distilled
liquors, having a very decided and peculiar flavor. It is a little
fiery when new, but as water soon quenches fire, it is not spared by
the native retailers, whose arrack would be of a most innocent
character were it not for their infamous addition of stupefying drugs
and hot peppers.

The toddy contains a large proportion of saccharine, without which the
vinous fermentation could not take place. This is procured by
evaporation in boiling, on the same principle that sugar is produced
from cane-juice. The syrup is then poured into small saucers to cool,
and it shortly assumes the consistence of hardened sugar. This is
known in Ceylon as "jaggery," and is manufactured exclusively by the
natives.

Cocoa-nut oil is now one of the greatest exports of Ceylon, and within
the last few years the trade has increased to an unprecedented extent.
In the two years of 1849 and 1850, the exports of cocoa-nut oil did not
exceed four hundred and forty-three thousand six hundred gallons, while
in the year 1853 they had increased to one million thirty-three
thousand nine hundred gallons; the trade being more than quadrupled in
three years.

The manufacture of the oil is most simple. The kernel is taken from
the nut, and being divided, it is exposed to the sun until all the
watery particles are evaporated. The kernel thus dried is known as
"copperah." This is then pressed in a mill, and the oil flows into a
reservoir.

This oil, although clear and limpid in the tropics, hardens to the
consistence of lard at any temperature below 72 Fahrenheit. Thus it
requires a second preparation on its arrival in England. There it is
spread upon mats (formed of coir) to the thickness