s with a solace
more indispensable than tobacco or tea. But the coconut loves a sandy
soil and the salt breath of the sea and the company of its own kind. The
others grow erect as a mast, but the gentle coconuts lean on the wind
and mingle the waving of their sisterly arms, casting a grateful shade
on the humble folk who live under their blessing.

To the mariner sailing by India's coral strand that country presents the
aspect of an endless beach of shell sand, quite innocent of coral, on
which the surf breaks continually into dazzling white foam against a
dark background of pensive palms. He might naturally suppose that they
had grown up of themselves, like the screw-pines and aloes which
sometimes share the beach with them; but that would be a great mistake.
Everyone of them has been planted and carefully watered for years and
manured annually with fresh foliage of forest trees buried in a moat
round the root. And so it grew in stature, but not in girth, until its
head was sixty, seventy or even eighty feet above the ground, and a
hundred nuts of various sizes hung in bunches from long, shiny, green
arms, each as thick as a man's, which had thrust themselves out from
between the lower fronds.

There is no production of Nature that I know of less negotiable than a
coconut as the tree presents it. The man who first showed the way into
it deserved a place in mythology with Prometheus, Jason and other heroes
of the dawn. There is a crab, I know, which lives on coconuts, enjoying
the scientific name of _Birgus latro_, the Burglar; but it seems to be a
special invention, as big as a cat and armed with two fearful pairs of
pincers in front for rending the outside casings of the fruits, and a
more delicate tool on its hind-legs for picking out the meat. Other
animals have to do without it, as had man, I opine, in the stone and
copper ages. With the iron age came a chopper, called in Western India a
"koita," with which he can hack his way through most of the obstructions
of life. When, with this, he has slashed off the tough outer rind and
the inch-thick packing of agglutinated fibres, like metal wires, he has
only to crack the hard shell which contains the kernel.

How little we can conceive the spaces in his life that would be empty
without that firm pulp, at once nutritious, sweet and fragrant! Curry
cannot be made without it, the cook cannot advance three steps in its
absence, pattimars laden with it are sailing north, s