VI.THE TREE OF LIFE.
Illustrated letter
TO dwellers in Ceylon, the cocoanut palm calls up a wide range of ideas. It associates itself with nearly every want and convenience of native life. It might tempt a Singalese villager to assert that if he were placed upon the earth with nothing else whatever to minister to his necessities than the cocoa-nut tree, he could pass his existence in happiness and contentment.
When he has felled one of those trees after it has ceased bearing (say in its seventieth year), with its trunk he builds his hut and his bullock-stall, which he thatches with its leaves. His bolts and bars are slips of the bark, by which he also suspends the small shelf which holds his stock of home-made utensils and vessels. He fences his little plot of chillies, tobacco, and fine grain with the leaf-stalks. The infant is swung to sleep in a rude net of coir-string made from the husk of the fruit; its meal of rice and scraped cocoanut is boiled over a fire of cocoanut shells and husks, and is eaten off a dish formed of the plaited green leaves of the trees, with a spoon cut out of the nut-shell. When he goes a-fishing by torchlight his net is of cocoanut fibre; the torch, or chule is a bundle of dried cocoanut leaves and flower-stalks; the little canoe is the trunk of the cocoa-palm tree,hollowed by his own hands. He carries home his net and string of fish on a yoke, or pingo, formed of a cocoanut stalk. When he is thirsty, he drinks of the fresh juice of the young nut; when he is hungry, he eats its soft kernel. If he have a mind to be merry, he sips a glass of arrack, distilled from the fermented juice, and he flavours his curry with vinegar made from this toddy. Should he be sick, his body will be rubbed with cocoanut oil; he sweetens his coffee with jaggery, or cocoanut sugar, and softens it with cocoanut milk; it is sipped by the light of a lamp constructed from a cocoanut shell, and fed by cocoanut oil. His doors, his windows, his shelves, his chairs, the water-gutter under the eaves, are all made from the wood of the tree. His spoons, his forks, his basins, his mugs, his salt-cellars, his jars, his child’s money-box, are all constructed from the shell of the nut. Over his couch when first born, and over his grave when buried, a bunch of cocoanut blossoms is hung, to charm away evil spirits.
This palm is assiduously cultivated in Ceylon, in topes or plantations; and it was long believed that the rude native system of culture was the best, but experience has shown the fallacy of this opinion. Hence, the Singalese continue to find the manual labour, but the Englishman provides skill and implements.
There is a good road to within a couple of miles of the plantation I am about to describe, so that the visitor has little difficulty in performing this much of the journey. The remaining two miles lie through a sandy track of very flat and rather uninteresting country. Here and there, amidst a maze of paddy fields, areca nuttopes, and patches of low, thorny jungle, are dotted little white-walled huts. They are much cleaner than any such near the towns of Ceylon; attached to each is a small slip of ground, rudely fenced, and half cultivated, with a few sweet potatoes, some chillies, and a little tobacco and fine grain. It was mid-day when I started on foot to this estate. The sun was blazing above in unclouded glory. Under the shade of a bread-fruit tree, the owner of the first hut I got to was dozing and chewing betel-nut, evidently tasting, in anticipation, the bliss of Buddha’s paradise. The wife was pounding up something for curry; the children were by her side—the boys smoking tiny cheroots, the girls twisting mats. It was fortunate for me that the sandy path was over-shadowed by jungle trees, or my progress would have been impossible. Not a breath of air was stirring amidst that dense mass of vegetation; not a twig or a leaf could be persuaded to move; the long and graceful paddy stalks glittered and sparkled in their watery resting places, as though they were made of the purest burnished gold. The buffaloes had taken to their noon-day watering places. The birds were evidently done up, and were nowhere to be seen; the beetles crawled feebly over the cooler shrubs, but they could not get up a single hum or a buzz amongst them all; even the busy little ants perspired, and dropped their lilliputian loads. Well, the dry ditch and thorny fence that form the boundary and protection of the estate were at last reached, and the little gate and watch-hut were passed. The watcher, or lascoryn, was a Malay, moustachioed and fierce, for the natives of the country can rarely bedepended on as protectors of property against their fellow-villagers. A narrow belt of jungle trees and shrubs had been left quite round the plantation, to assist in keeping out cattle and wild animals, which are frequently very destructive to a young cocoanut estate, in spite of armed watchers, ditches, and fences. Passing through this little belt, I found, on entering, an entirely new scene. Before and around me waved gracefully the long shining leaves of three hundred acres of cocoanut palms, each acre containing, on an average, eighty trees. It was indeed a beautiful and interesting sight. Two-thirds of these trees were yielding ample crops, though only in their tenth year; in two years more they will generally be in full bearing. Unlike the rudely-planted native garden, this estate had been most carefully laid down; the young plants had all been placed out at regular intervals and in perfectly straight lines, so that, looking over the estate in either direction, the long avenues presented one unbroken figure, at once pleasing to the eye and easy of access. But if these interminable masses of palms appeared a lovely picture when regarded at some little distance, how much was their beauty heightened on a nearer inspection! Walking close under the shadow of their long and ribbon-like leaves, I could see how thickly they were studded with golden-green fruit in every stage of growth. The sight was absolutely marvellous. Were such trees, so laden, painted by an artist, his production would, in all probability, be pronounced unnatural. They appeared more like some fairy creations, got up for my special amusement, resembling nearly those gorgeoustrees which, in my youth, I delighted to read about in the “Arabian Nights,” growing in subterranean gardens, and yielding precious stones. They hung in grape-like clusters around the crest of the tree; the large, golden, ripe nuts below, smaller and greener fruit just above them, followed by scores of others in all stages, from the blossom-bud to the half-grown. It was impossible to catch a glimpse of the stem, so thickly did the fruit hang on all sides. I made an attempt to count them—“thirty—fifty—eighty—one hundred”—I could go no further; those little fellows near the top, peeping up like so many tiny dolls’ heads, defied my most careful numeration; but I feel confident there must have been quite two hundred nuts on that one palm. Above the clusters of rich fruit were two feather-like flowers, white as snow, and smooth and glossy as polished ivory; they had just burst from their sheaths, and a more delicate, lovely picture could scarcely be imagined.
A cocoanut tree in a native Singalese tope will sometimes yield fifty nuts in twelve months; but the average of them seldom give more than twenty-five in the year. It is therefore very evident that European skill may be employed beneficially on this cultivation, as well as on any other.
I was at first rather startled at perceiving a tall, half-naked Singalese away in the distance, with a gun at least half as long again as himself, long black hair over his shoulders, and bunches of something hanging at his girdle. He was watching some game amongst the trees; at last he fired, ran, picked up something, and stuck it in his girdle. What could it be?—parrot,pigeon, or jungle-fowl? It was only a poor little squirrel; and there were at least two scores of these pretty creatures hanging at the waist of the mighty hunter! Fortunately, he could speak a little English, and I was not long in learning the cause of this slaughter. It appeared that in addition to their pretty bushy tails, glossy coats, and playful gambols, the squirrels have very sharp and active teeth, and an uncommon relish for the sweet, tender buds of the cocoanut flower, which they nip off and destroy by scores, and of course lessen by so much the future crop of fruit. Handfuls of the buds lay half-eaten around each tree, and I no longer felt astonished at this species of sporting. The ground had evidently been well cleared from jungle plants, not one of such was to be seen in all this track; a stout and healthy-looking grass was springing up along the avenues; whilst at intervals patches of Indian corn, sweet potatoes, guinea-grass, and other products—intended for cattle-fodder during dry weather when the wild grasses fail—gave tints of varied luxuriance to the scene.
The ground at this part of the estate sloped a little, and I came to an open space, somewhat marshy in appearance. A number of cattle, young and old, were browsing about on the long grass, or sipping a draft from the clear stream which ran through the low ground. They were confined within a rude but stout fence, and on one side was a range of low sheds for their shelter. The cattle appeared in good condition. They were purchased, when very young, from the drovers who bring them in hundreds from the Malabar coast; and many were then fit forthe cart, the carriage, or the knife. At the end was a manure shed, and outside stood a keeper’s hut, with a store attached, in which were piled up dried guinea-grass, maize, &c.
The manure pit was deep and large, and in it lay the true secret of the magical productiveness of the trees I had just seen. Good seed, planted in light, free soil, well cleared and drained, will produce a fine healthy tree in a few years; and if to this be added occasional supplies of manure and a few waterings during the dry season, an abundant yield of fruit will most assuredly reward the toil and outlay of the cocoa-nut cultivator.
Leaving this spot, I strolled through the next field to see what a number of little boys were so busy about. There were a dozen dark urchins, running about from tree to tree; sometimes they stopped, clambered up, and appeared to have very particular business to transact at the stems of the leaves; but oftener they passed contented with a mere glance upwards at the fruit. They had a sharp-pointed instrument in the hand, whilst at the wrist of each was hung a cocoa-nut shell. I paused to see what one of these children was searching for, half hid as the little fellow was amongst the gigantic leaves. Intently scrutinising his motions, I observed that he forced the little sharp instrument into the very body of the tree. Down it went to the inmost core of the giant stem; all his strength was employed. He strained and struggled amongst the huge leaves as though he were engaged in deadly strife with some terrible boa or cheetah. At last he secured his antagonist, and descended with something alive, small andblack, and impaled on the barbed point of the little weapon. A few questions elicited the whole secret. The cocoa-nut tree, it seems, has many enemies besides squirrels—the elephant, the wild hog, the rat, the white ant, the porcupine, the monkey, and a large white worm, either attack it when young or rob it of its fruit when mature. But the most numerous and persevering enemy which it has to encounter from the age of three years until long after it produces fruit, iscooroominiya, or cocoa-nut beetle; a black, hard-coated creature, with beautiful wings, and a most powerful little tusk, which it employs with fatal activity to open a way into the stems of the palms. Its labours commence in the evening, and by early morning it will be buried half-a-dozen inches deep in the very centre of the tree, where, if not detected and removed, it feeds on the soft, pithy fibres, deposits its eggs, and does not depart in less than two or three days. These holes are always made in the softest and sweetest part of the tree, near the crown; and in young plants they prove seriously hurtful, checking the growth and impairing the health of the future tree. In a morning’s walk an active lad will frequently secure as many as a score of thesecooroominiyas, which, after being killed, are strung upon liliputian gibbets about the estate, as a warning to their live friends.
Farther on I perceived, gathered in anxious consultation, three of the lads around a tree that was loaded with fruit; they looked up at the leaves, then at the root, then at the trunk. At last one little fellow started off, swift-footed as a hare, and was soon out of sight. The othersbegan scraping the earth from the root as fast as possible, and all the information they would impart was “ledde gaha,” or sick tree; so that there was nothing for it but to imagine that the little messenger had been despatched for the doctor. He soon came back, not with the medicine-man, but amamootie, or Dutch hoe, and acattie, or sharp bill-hook. And then the busy work went on again. In little more time than I take to tell the story, the soil was removed from about the root, a hole was discovered in the trunk, and its course upwards ascertained by means of a cane probe. With thecattie, one of the boys commenced cutting and opening midway in the trunk of the tree. On looking up I perceived that the patient gave unmistakable symptoms of ill health. The long leaves were drooping at the end, and tinged with a sickly yellow; many of the nuts had fallen off, and others had evidently half a mind to follow the example. The flower, which had just burst above, hung down its sickly head, weeping away the germs of what had else been fruit. The hole was now complete; it was large enough for the smallest boy to force his hand in, and it soon brought away a basket full of pith and powdered wood from the body of the tree. There, amidst the ruin, was the enemy that has caused so much mischief and labour. It was an unsightly worm, about four inches in length, and as thick as one’s small finger, having a dull white body and black head. I then began to wonder what had next to be done—whether the tree would die after all this hacking and maiming. Would the medicine-man now be sent for? No. The interior of the wounded tree, as well as the aperture, wasthoroughly freed from dirt and decomposed fibre—which might have aided in hatching any eggs left by the worm—and finally the root was covered up, and the opening and inside of the palm tightly filled with clay. I was assured that not more than one of ten trees thus treated ever fails to recover its health.
The nocturnal attacks of elephants are checked by means of lighted fires, and an occasional shot or two during the night. Wild hogs and porcupines are caught in traps and hunted by dogs. The monkeys are shot down like the squirrels, and the white ants are poisoned. In spite of all these measures, however, an estate often suffers very severely, and its productiveness is much interfered with by these depredators.
The soil over which I had as yet passed had been of one uniform description—a light sandy earth, containing a little vegetable matter, and but a little. Afterwards I arrived at a tract of planted land, quite different from its nature and mode of cultivation. It was of a far stiffer character, deeper in colour, and more weedy. This portion of the estate was in former days a swamp, in which the porcupine, the wild hog, and the jackal delighted to dwell, sheltered from the encroachment of man by a dense mass of low jungle, thorns, and reeds. To drive away these destructive creatures from the vicinity of the young palms the jungle was fired during dry weather. It was then perceived that the soil of this morass, although wet and rank from its position, was of a most luxuriant character. A few deep drains were opened through the centre, cross drains were cut, and after one season’s exposureto the purifying action of the atmosphere and rain, the whole of it was planted, and it now gives fair promise of being one day the finest field in the plantation.
From this low ground I strolled through some long avenues of trees on the right; their long leaves protected me from the heat of the afternoon sun, which was still considerable. The trees on this side were evidently older; they had a greater number of ripe fruit; and further away in the distance might be seen a multitude of men and boys busily engaged in bearing away the huge nuts in pairs to a path or rude cart-track, where acangany, or native overseer, was occupied in counting them as they were tossed into the bullock-cart. The expertness of the boys in climbing these smooth, lofty, and branchless trees, by the aid of a small band formed by twisting a portion of a cocoa-nut leaf, was truly astonishing. In a moment their small feet grasped the trunk, aided by the twisted leaf, whilst their hands were employed above; they glided upwards, and with a quick eye detected the riper fruit, which, rapidly twisted from their stalks, were flung to the ground. Their companions below were busy in removing the nuts, which for young children is no easy task—the nuts frequently weighing fifteen or twenty pounds each, with the husk or outer skins on them. The natives have a simple but ingenious method of tying them together in pairs, by which means the boys can carry two of them with ease, when otherwise one would be a task of difficulty. The nuts have little, if any, stalk; the practice, therefore, is to slit up a portion of the husk (which is the coir fibre in its natural state), pullout a sufficient length without breaking it, and thus tie two together. In this way the little urchins scamper along with the nuts slung across their shoulders, scarcely feeling the weight.
I followed the loaded carts. They were halted at a large enclosure, inside of which were huge pens formed of jungle sticks, about ten feet in height; into these the nuts were stored and re-counted, a certain number only being kept in each, as the pens are all of the same dimensions. Adjoining was another and still larger space, lying lower, with some deep ditches and pits in the midst. Here the outer husk is stripped off, preparatory to breaking the nut itself in order to obtain the kernel, which has to be dried before the oil can be expressed. Into the pits or ditches the husk is flung, and left in ten feet of water ten or fourteen days, when it is removed and beaten out on stones, to free the elastic fibre from dirt and useless vegetable matter. This is a most disagreeable operation, for the stench from the half-putrid husks is very strong. The fibre, after being well dried on the sandy ground, undergoes a rude assortment into three qualities, in reference chiefly to colour, and is then delivered over to the rope-maker, who works it up into yarn, rope, or junk, as required. Freed from their outer covering, the nuts are either sold for making curries, in which they form a prominent feature, or they are kept for drying ready for the oil-mill.
Having learned this much, I strolled through the small green field and along a patch of guinea-grass, to see what was going on in that direction. The neat-looking building adjoining was the superintendent’s bungalow, and the longsheds and open spaces in their front and rear were for drying the nuts into what is termedcopperah, in which state they are ground up for pressure. It was a busy scene indeed, and the operations require constant vigilance on the part of the manager; yet all the work is carried on in the rudest way, and with the most simple instruments. Half-a-dozen stout lads were seated cross-legged on the ground, each with a heap of nuts by his side. The rapidity with which they seized these, and, with one sharp blow of a heavy knife, split them precisely in half, and flung them away into other heaps, was remarkable. It seemed to be done with scarcely an effort, yet, on handling the broken nut, one could not help being struck with its thickness and strength. Smaller boys were busily employed in removing these heaps of split fruit to the large open spaces, when others, assisted by a few women, were occupied in placing them in rows close together, with the open part outwards, so that the kernels may be fully exposed to the direct rays of the sun. In this way they remain for two days, when the fruit, partly dried, shrinks from the shell and is removed. Two more days’ exposure to the sun in fine weather will generally complete the drying process. The kernels are then calledcopperah, and are brittle and unctuous in the hand.
To convert this material into oil, the natives employ a very primitive mill, worked by bullocks, and called acheckoo; this process is very slow, and the oil never clean. Europeans have, however, obviated these objections, and manufacture the cocoa-nut oil by means of granite crushers and hydraulic presses worked by steampower. This is chiefly done in Colombo, to which place, of course, thecopperahhas to be conveyed. The refuse of the oil-presses, the dry cake (orpoonac), is very useful as food for cattle or poultry, and not less so as a manure for the palm-trees when moistened and applied in a partially decomposed state.
Not a particle of this valuable tree is lost. The fresh juice of the blossom, which is broken off to allow it to flow freely, is termed, as I have said, toddy, and is drunk, when quite new, as a cool and pleasantly-refreshing beverage; when fermented, it is distilled, and yields the less harmless liquor known as arrack.
All these operations are not carried on with ease and regularity. The Singalese are an idle race; like many better men, their chief pleasure is to perform as little work as possible. This necessitates a never-ending round of inspection by the European manager, who, mounted on a small pony, paper umbrella in hand, visits every corner of the property at least once a day, often twice. Neither is it unusual for him to make a round during the night. On the whole, therefore, he enjoys no sinecure.