In the process of purification, it yields glycerine; and
it enters largely into the manufacture of most better-class soaps. The
fibre that surrounds the nut makes up the other mysterious article of
commerce known as coir, which is twisted into stout ropes, or woven into
coco-nut matting and ordinary door-mats. Brushes and brooms are also
made of it, and it is used, not always in the most honest fashion, in
place of real horse-hair in stuffing cushions. The shell, cut in half,
supplies good cups, and is artistically carved by the Polynesians,
Japanese, Hindoos, and other benighted heathen, who have not yet learnt
the true methods of civilised machine-made shoddy manufacture. The
leaves serve as excellent thatch; on the flat blades, prepared like
papyrus, the most famous Buddhist manuscripts are written; the long
mid-ribs or branches (strictly speaking, the leaf-stalks) answer
admirably for rafters, posts, or fencing; the fibrous sheath at the base
is a remarkable natural imitation of cloth, employed for strainers,
wrappers, and native hats; while the trunk, or stem, passes in carpentry
under the name of porcupine wood, and produces beautiful effects as a
wonderfully coloured cabinet-makers' material. These are only a few
selected instances out of the innumerable uses of the coco-nut palm.
Apart even from the manifold merits of the tree that bears it, the milk
itself has many and great claims to our respect and esteem, as everybody
who has ever drunk it in its native surroundings will enthusiastically
admit.
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