"There are said to be 20,000,000 cocoa-nut-trees in Ceylon. Now, if each tree makes forty nuts a year, they have 800,000,000 nuts, and I wonder what they do with them?"
He propounded the problem to the stranger; the latter smiled, and replied,
"Ceylon exports 2,000,000 gallons of cocoa-nut oil, and consumes as much more; it takes forty nuts for a gallon of oil, and thus we dispose of the product of 4,000,000 trees.
"Then there are 5,000,000 trees that produce toddy, which is the juice obtained by tapping the base of the buds just before they blossom. It is drunk sweet or fermented, but in the latter condition it has intoxicating qualities that are not at all beneficial. It contains a good deal of saccharine matter, and is boiled down sometimes into coarse sugar, and sometimes into a sort of cheap molasses. Toddy makes excellent vinegar, is used for leavening bread, and is distilled into the spirits called arrack. The word 'toddy' has gone into other languages, and is known in both England and America.
"During the season of gathering the juice of the palm the gatherers are greatly disturbed by a small bird that drinks the juice, and calls all its friends to share it with him; it is known as the 'toddy-bird,' and his nest is shaped somewhat like that of the Baltimore oriole. The bird is a social one, and sometimes hundreds of nests will be found together on a single tree.
"We have disposed of the product of 9,000,000 trees, and have 11,000,000 remaining. Many millions of nuts are annually used as food by the natives, either in a green or ripe state, and great numbers are destroyed by the monkeys and other animals that infest the trees. For making the best qualities of coir-rope the nuts must be gathered when green, as the fibres become brittle when old, and the rope is of a poor sort. Then there are many millions of nuts exported to other countries, and on the whole very little of the product of the forest is allowed to go to waste."
[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF A WEALTHY FOREIGNER.]
As they approached Colombo there were occasional glimpses of houses among the trees, and the boys were not surprised to learn that the cocoa forest was considered a desirable place of residence for the foreigners in Colombo who could afford homes out of the city. Avenues of palms led from the road to the dwellings, and in several instances there were evidences of liberal expenditure and excellent taste in the arrangement of the houses and their surroundings. Seven or eight miles from Colombo the planter called the attention of the boys to an island that was just visible through the trees, and was separated from the land by a very narrow channel. He explained that it was a favorite resort of the foreigners in Colombo when they wished to indulge in sea-bathing, and that a railway had lately been completed to it.