In England, to be sure, the white milk in the dry nuts is a very
poor stuff, sickly, and strong-flavoured, and rather indigestible. But
in the tropics, coco-nut milk, or, as we oftener call it there, coco-nut
water, is a very different and vastly superior sort of beverage. At
eleven o'clock every morning, when you are hot and tired with the day's
work, your black servant, clad from head to foot in his cool clean white
linen suit, brings you in a tall soda glass full of a clear, light,
crystal liquid, temptingly displayed against the yellow background of a
chased Benares brass-work tray. The lump of ice bobs enticingly up and
down in the centre of the tumbler, or clinks musically against the edge
of the glass as he carries it along. You take the cool cup thankfully
and swallow it down at one long draught; fresh as a May morning, pure as
an English hillside spring, delicate as--well, as coco-nut water. None
but itself can be its parallel. It is certainly the most delicious,
dainty, transparent, crystal drink ever invented. How did it get there,
and what is it for?
In the early green stage at which coco-nuts are generally picked for
household use in the tropics the shell hasn't yet solidified into a hard
stony coat, but still remains quite soft enough to be readily cut
through with a sharp table knife--just like young walnuts picked for
pickling. If you cut one across while it's in this unsophisticated
state, it is easy enough to see the arrangement of the interior, and the
part borne by the milk in the development and growth of the mature nut.
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