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His coconut palms yield him a little revenue; he has poultry, kids, and goats' milk more than he needs; his patch of provision-ground in the place gives him corn and roots, sweet potatoes, yam, tania, cassava, and fruit too, all the year round. He needs nothing, owes nothing, fears nothing.
Fil's father, who was a planter of wide acres, replied: "The cocoa bean and the coconut are two very different plants. Do not confuse them. The cocoa bean, out of which you grind cocoa powder and chocolate for a drink, for bonbons, and for puddings, comes out of a fruit shaped like a large red cucumber. This fruit grows on a tender bush, which must be shaded by a thick banana palm.
We must not think, however, of the trunk as, at the best, anything more than a by-product of the coconut tree, whose head is more than its body. Even while it lives its head is shorn once a year, for, as fresh fronds push out and upward from the centre, those of the outer circle get old and must be cut away.
The hair of the front and of all parts of the head is of the same length, and when loose hangs together behind, with most of the women, in very great quantity. It is kept moist with oil newly expressed from the coconut; but those persons who can afford it make use also of an empyreumatic oil extracted from gum benzoin, as a grateful perfume.
The shell-fire ceased as Jerry trotted along; next he heard the rifle- fire from the landing-party, as it shot down the domestic pigs on Somo's streets. He did not hear, however, the chopping down of the coconut trees, any more than did he ever return to behold what damage the axes had wrought. For right here occurred with Jerry a wonderful thing that thinkers of the world have not explained.
He was boarding with a half-caste trader who had a store a couple of miles along the coast at the edge of a native village; and one day, wandering aimlessly along the grassy paths of the coconut groves, he had come upon the hut in which Sally lived. The beauty of the spot had filled him with a rapture so great that it was almost painful, and then he had seen Sally.
But he had some almonds and raisins when we had climbed to the top of the chest of drawers to pluck them from the boughs of the great trees; and he had a fig from the cargo that the rich merchants brought in their ship the long drawer was the ship and the rest of us had the sweets and the coconut.
This being directed four men to carry the blanket on which the medium was seated to the balaua, when they were met by another medium, possessed by the spirit Balien. For a time they busied themselves making repairs to the spirit structure, then decorated it by tying strips of shredded coconut leaves to the slats of the floor.
How many boys and girls are there in this kingdom to whom the word coconut connotes an ingredient which goes to the making of a very toothsome sweetie? And how many confectioners and shop girls are there whose idea is no broader? Again: "I laye a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, a-thynkynge, And merrie sang the Birde as she sat upon the spraye." And I said, "Little Bird, what do you know of the coconut?"
From time to time during the next quarter of an hour more red-hot stones were dropped into the bowl until old Sru pronounced the contents to be tunua, i.e., well and truly cooked, and then whilst the now bright red crayfish were laid out to cool upon platters of green woven coconut leaf, the first oven of fish and bananas was opened. What a delightful meal it was!
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