Even as things stand at the present day, however, it is wonderful how
much use we modern Englishmen now make in our own houses of this far
Eastern nut, whose very name still bears upon its face the impress of
its originally savage origin. From morning to night we never leave off
being indebted to it. We wash with it as old brown Windsor or glycerine
soap the moment we leave our beds. We walk across our passages on the
mats made from its fibre. We sweep our rooms with its brushes, and wipe
our feet on it as we enter our doors. As rope, it ties up our trunks and
packages; in the hands of the housemaid it scrubs our floors; or else,
woven into coarse cloth, it acts as a covering for bales and furniture
sent by rail or steamboat. The confectioner undermines our digestion in
early life with coco-nut candy; the cook tempts us later on with
coco-nut cake; and Messrs. Huntley and Palmer cordially invite us to
complete the ruin with coco-nut biscuits. We anoint our chapped hands
with one of its preparations after washing; and grease the wheels of our
carriages with another to make them run smoothly. Finally, we use the
oil to burn in our reading lamps, and light ourselves at last to bed
with stearine candles. Altogether, an amateur census of a single small
English cottage results in the startling discovery that it contains
twenty-seven distinct articles which owe their origin in one way or
another to the coco-nut palm. And yet we affect in our black ingratitude
to despise the question of the milk in the coco-nut.
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