outh, east and
west, a thousand creaky wooden mills are squeezing the limpid oil out of
it, a hundred thousand little earthen lamps filled with that oil are
making visible the smoky darkness of hut and temple, brightening the
wedding feast and illuminating the sad page over which the candidate for
university honours nods his shaven head. That oil fed lighthouses of the
first order and illuminated viceregal balls and durbars before paraffin
and kerosene inundated the earth. And it has other uses. For arresting
premature baldness and preventing the hair turning grey its virtues are
equalled by no other oil known to us, and there is a fortune awaiting
the hairdresser who can find means effectually to remove or suppress its
peculiar and penetrating odour. Joao Gomez, my faithful "boy," did not
object to the odour, and when he had been tempted to pass my comb
through his raven locks as he was dusting my dressing table, I always
knew it.

When the white kernel has been turned to account, the utilities of the
coconut are not exhausted. The shell, neatly bisected, makes a pair of
teacups, and either of these, fitted with a wooden handle, makes a handy
spoon. Laurenco de Gama demands one or two of these inexpensive spoons
to complete the furnishing of my kitchen. As for the obstinate casing
that wraps the coconut shell, it is an article of commerce. It must
first be soaked for some months in a pit on the slimy bank of the
backwater, until all the stuff that holds it together in a stiff and
obdurate mass has rotted away and set free those hard and smooth fibres
which nothing can rot. These, when thoroughly purged of the foul black
pollution in which they have sweltered so long, will go out to all
quarters of the world under the name of "coir" to make indestructible
door mats and other indispensable things. It will penetrate to every
corner of India in which a white man lives, to mat his verandahs and
stuff his mattresses.

And who shall recount a tithe of its other uses? Of course, the nude man
under the coconut tree knows nothing of all this. He does without a
mattress, and has no use for a door mat. But he cannot do without
cordage, and if you took from him his coconut fibre, life would almost
stop. Wherewith would he bind the rafters of his hut to the beams, or
tether the cow, or let down the bucket into the well? What would all the
boats do that traverse the backwater, or lie at anchor in the bay, or
line the sandy beach? F