it is licensed by the government, which derives from it a yearly revenue of about
40,000 dollars, or about 10,000£.
COCO-PALM (cocos-mtjcifera). This palm, so generally diffused over the
tropical world, old and new, would appear to be a native of several of the islands of
the Asiatic Afchipelago,.while to others, it seems to have been conveyed by currents
or by man. The two-most frequent names for it are, the Malay, fiur, and the Javanese,
kfilapa. These, with some corruptions, have a very wide circulation, especially the
first. The Javanese name extends to the languages of Celebes, and even to some of
those of the islands of the Molucca Sea, but the Malay, to the Philippine tongues, to
the language of the South Sea Islands, and even to that of Madagascar.
The coco-palm is in a good measure a littoral plant, attaining earliest maturity,
greatest size, and most fruitfulness close to the sea, although growing also, and
yielding fruit at a considerable distance from it. The natives are well aware of this
fact, according to the following apt quotation from Marsden’s Sumatra. “ Here, said
a countryman at Laye, if I plant a coco-nut, I may expect to reap the fruit of it, but
in Labun (an inland district) I should only plant for my great grand-children.” Many
uninhabited islets, on the western coast of Sumatra, afford examples of the mode in
which the coco-palm has been conveyed by currents, and of the partiality of
the plant for the immediate neighbourhood of the sea. “ This island, Triste, says
Dampier, “ is not a mile round, and so low, that the tide flows clear over it. I t is of
a sandy soil, and full of coco-nut trees. The nuts are but small, yet sweet enough,
full, and more ponderous than I ever felt any of that bigness, notwithstanding that
at every spring-tide the salt-water goes clear over the island.”—Vol. i. p. 474. The
island thus referred to is the Pulo-Mega, or “ Cloud Island,” of the natives, a name
taken from Sanscrit, and is distant from the shore of Sumatra fifteen leagues. From
this account, it is evident that the nut may be conveyed a long way by sea without
losing its vitality. The same judicious observer narrates the following fact in
illustration. “ The tenth day, being in latitude 5° 10', and about 7 or 8 leagues
from the island of Sumatra, on the west side of it, we saw abundance of coco nuts
swimming in the sea, and we hoisted out our boats and took some of them, as also a
small hutch or scuttle, rather belonging to some bark. The nuts were very sound,
and the kernel sweet, and in some, the milk or water in them was yet sweet and
good.” Vol. i. p. 474. The coco-nuts, in this case, were no doubt the produce
By far the best account of this important palm, that I have seen, is to be found in
the 4th vol. of the Journal of the Indian Archipelago, written by Mr. J. T. Thomson.
“ The habit of this tree,” says this experienced and intelligent writer, “ is on the seashore,
fringing the beach. In such a position, should the soil be loose and friable,
though of the most meagre description, such as sea-sand and shells, it grows luxuriantly
without the concomitant aids of cultivation, manure, or the proximity of
inhabited houses; but this only obtains within one or two hundred feet of the beach.
Its bending stem, inclined towards the sea, causing its fruit to be received into the
bosom of that element, appears to have peculiarly fitted it for extension to the various
islands and atolls of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, to which the nut is floated by
the winds and tides, and to whose inhabitants it affords both shelter and food. \\ hen
planted in other localities than these, it neither grows well nor affords fruit, unless it
be on rich soil, or in the proximity of dwellings, and in average soils it requires both
considerable manuring and cultivation. . • • A good coco-nut tree, when in full
bearing, will yield 140 to 150 nuts per annum. It commences to bear in damp, low,
rich soils in the 4th or 5th year, in sandy sods, of middling height, in the 6th and 7 th
year and on high ridges in the 9th and 10th year and the last, though slow m growth,
are wholesome good trees. From the time the blossom shows, three months elapse
before the formation of the fruit, and the fruit requires six months more to come to
full growth, three months more to ripen, and it will remain other two months before
it drops. Thus fourteen months elapse between the blossoming and the felling of the
r^The'accounts usually given of the almost innumerable uses to which the different
parts of the coco-palm are put are in a good measure exaggerated. The only parts
essentially valuable are the albumen of the nut for its oil, and its husk for a textile
material. In the Asiatic Archipelago, the wood, the leaves, the sap, and the pith
of other palms, are either better in quality or cheaper. In whatever manner the
first inhabitants of other regions of the earth may have obtained their earliest
subsistence, it is certain that those of which the coco-palm is a native, had at
once from it, a spontaneous supply, both of food and drink. Its presence on
the coast, probably contributed, with the easy supply offish, to determine, from the
first, that maritime character which still belongs to so many of the tribes of the
Archipelago.
COCOS. The name of four small, coral-girt islets on the western coast of Sumatra
off the south-western end of the large island Simalu, the Hog-island of the charts!
and lying in the third degree of north latitude. They are uninhabited, but covered
with coco-nut palms, and hence their name imposed, no doubt, by the Portuguese.
COFFEE (COFFEA AKABICA). The Arabian name of this plant, kâwâh, is not
unknown to the inhabitants of the Archipelago, but the European one corrupted,
kopi, is more generally used. This really hardy plant, a native of Africa of the
region between the 10th and 15th degrees of north latitude, thrives anywhere in a
suitable soil and locality within the tropics. I t was only brought across the Bed Sea
,r,°™ Abyssinia and cultivated in the mountains of Arabia, as late as about the year
1450, less than half a century before the discovery of America and the passage to
India by the Cape. Neither the Arabs, nor Portuguese, attempted to introduce the
coffee plant into the islands of the Archipelago. This was reserved for the Dutch,
who effected it m 1690, or some forty years after coffee had come to be used as a
beverage in Europe. The event was, in a good measure, accidental, for it could
hardly have been foreseen that a native plant of the dry climates of Abyssinia and
Arabia would have flourished in the humid ones about the equator. The manner of
its introduction and dissemination to remote regions is curious and instructive. The
aÜk n 1r J ?mpaI1Ly carried on some trade from Java with Arabian Gulf, and about the year 1690 the governor-general Van Hoortnhee cpaourstesd o sfo tmhee
ripe coffee seeds to be brought to him to Java. These were planted in a garden near
Batavia, where they grew and produced fruit. A single plant so grown was sent by
the governor-general to Holland, as a present to Nicholas Witsen, the governor of the
East¡India Company. This, after the tedious voyage of the time a^rivedsafe
planted m the botanic garden of Amsterdam, where it flourished,’ bore fruit and the
fruit young plants. Some of these plants were sent to the colony of Surinam the
planters of which began to cultivate coffee as an object of trade in 1718 twenty-eight
S “ * introduction of the parent plants into Java. About the velr 1728
coffee plants were earned from Surinam to the English and French West Indfe
î f j“ di\ From the cultivation of coffee has been extended to Sumatra, Celebes
Bah and several of the Philippine Islands, and the Asiatic Islands p ro d u c e d present
probably about one fourth part of all that is consumed. The hardihood of the eoffte
i l t e i f ! z t
» , S T p t £ T . , i g S j i g * - M i ,
C0G riih^ta largest of the three islets, the other two being Gmnmg-api and
F l o ^ V - I h l isDknoew f ■ °L ~ t W * * * divide Sum, u,7 nul,
s s a a a s . S ï E Î ? !
COMPASS. The compass, for nautical purposes, is, a t present used hv the
cipal native traders of the Archipelago The Bugis of HotIk r ' T P
rude compasses, made expressly f o r lem by the C ^ L e of p S lT »
account, no less than 2634 ™ . “ “ ¡J aSes--—by their own
with th é directive auahtvof^bo , 7 * ^ of Ch™t- The mere acquaintance
to the purposes of navi Jation a rÜ ^ o ^ i ff Poetical application of this quality
no evidence to show that the Chinese b ^ things; and there is certainly
In Europe, the tmpasL b ^ i to “ f 8“ * to the last °f these uses',
of the 14th c e n t u r v ^ IW ? 1 f?r nautlcal purposes about the beginning
had made a long voyage in é fl^toff Ch® ® ° l th/ Pre™us century, Marco Polo
and never m e JLm ftfe “o ~ » 1 » © S # * to the, Per sian Gulf,
would hardly have failed to havé done* hüd th “ ™ 6 *eei1 a nOTeltJ to him, he
The voyage, in fact, w ^ a coastin' one ’ P fleet bee* steered by i t
in the Persian Gulf,, it llaasstteedd eeiigghhtteeeenn ’m onths; aa nnd° , i. n imts cPoourrts eo,f t hCeh ifnleae tto t oOurcrnhuesd,
i 2