Thus it is that Nature is over-generous, and makes liberal provisions for her children in all instances. The camel has a foot especially designed for traveling upon the desert sands. Birds of prey possess talons suitable for seizing, and powerful beaks formed for severing their natural food. The tiniest plant shows exquisite adaptation to the climate where it is placed. Animals of the Arctic regions are covered with fur adequate to protect them from the freezing temperature in which they live. The most barbarous tribes are not forgotten. Wherever we find them, their food and necessities are sure to be discovered close at hand. Examples might be multiplied by the hundred. Ceylon alone offers us confirmation which is irrefutable, few spots on earth being better adapted to supply the natural wants of primitive man.
A thoughtful person cannot fail to be impressed with the remarkable adaptation of the palm family to the requirements of the natives of this region. Take, for instance, the cocoanut-tree, and realize for a moment its bountiful, beneficent products. It affords never-failing water in an always thirsty clime. Nutritious and palatable cream is obtained from its luscious nut; toddy to refresh the weary traveler, or arrack when fermented, comes from the same source, besides a rich oil for various domestic uses. Thus we have five distinct products from the cocoanut-tree, while the wood of the trunk itself affords material for many uses. The oriental poet designates three hundred different purposes to which the palm and its fruit can be profitably applied. The green nut contains nearly a pint of cool, sweet water; cool in the hottest weather, if partaken of when it is first gathered from the tree. The inner rind of the ripe nut, when reduced to a pulp, yields under pressure a cup of delicious cream. The toddy is sap produced from the buds thus divested, instead of permitting them to ripen and form the final nut. When it is first drawn, this liquid is pleasant and refreshing, like the newly expressed juice of the grape, or still more like Mexican pulque, produced by the American aloe, which is the universal tipple of the people south of the Rio Grande. By fermentation of the liquids obtained from the buds of the palm and from the stout stalk of the aloe, it becomes like alcohol, and is decidedly intoxicating. Cocoanut oil, produced from the fully ripe and dried meat of the nut, is a great staple of export from Colombo and Point de Galle. Each cocoanut-tree produces on an average from fifty to a hundred full and perfect nuts, yielding about a score the first year of its coming into bearing.