Peru. In 1681, at the time of the
Jesuit missionaries' first visit, they had the custom of eating their
dead and grinding the bones to a powder, which was mixed with a
fermented liquor and drunk. When expostulated with by the Jesuits they
said "it was better to be inside a friend than to be swallowed up by the
cold earth." They are a provident, hard-working people, partly
Christianized, and bolder than most of the civilized Indians. Their
languages show affinity to the Tupi-Guarani stock.

COCO-NUT[1] PALM (_Cocos nucifera_), a very beautiful and lofty
palm-tree, growing to a height of from 60 to 100 ft., with a cylindrical
stem which attains a thickness of 2 ft. The tree terminates in a crown
of graceful waving pinnate leaves. The leaf, which may attain to 20 ft.
in length, consists of a strong mid-rib, whence numerous long acute
leaflets spring, giving the whole the appearance of a gigantic feather.
The flowers are arranged in branching spikes 5 or 6 ft. long, enclosed
in a tough spathe, and the fruits mature in bunches of from 10 to 20.
The fruits when mature are oblong, and triangular in cross section,
measuring from 12 to 18 in. in length and 6 to 8 in. in diameter. The
fruit consists of a thick external husk or rind of a fibrous structure,
within which is the ordinary coco-nut of commerce. The nut has a very
hard, woody shell, enclosing the nucleus or kernel, the true seed,
within which again is a milky liquid called coco-nut milk. The palm is
so widely disseminated throughout tropical countries that it is
impossible to distinguish its original habitat. It flourishes with equal
vigour on the coast of the East Indies, throughout the tropical islands
of the Pacific, and in the West Indies and tropical America. It,
however, attains its greatest luxuriance and vigour on the sea shore,
and it is most at home in the innumerable small islands of the Pacific
seas, of the vegetation of which it is eminently characteristic. Its
wide distribution, and its existence in even the smallest coral islets
of the Pacific, are due to the character of the fruit, which is
eminently adapted for distribution by sea. The fibrous husk renders the
fruit light and the leathery skin prevents water-logging. The seed will
germinate readily on the sea-shore, the seedling growing out through the
soft germ-pore on the upper end of the hard nut. The fruits dropping
into the sea from trees growing on any shores would be carried by tides
and cu