At present the cocoa-palm is the sole plant which is cultivated by the natives of Kar-Nicobar. It supplies them with all they require for food and lodging, for house-furniture, or for commerce with foreign peoples. The stem of this slender column, from 60 to 100 feet in height, by about 2-1/2 in thickness, with its heavy green thatch of leaves, is very porous and slight looking, but is yet stiff and strong enough to furnish cross-beams, laths, and masts for huts and boats. The fibres of the bark and of the nut-shells (known in commerce as _Coir_) supply cordage and line; the immense fan-shaped leaf (3 feet wide by 12 to 14 in length) of the coronal serves as a covering for the roof, as also for plaited work and baskets. The juice of the nut, shaped like an egg, yet somewhat triangular, and about the size of the human head, prevents the native from feeling even in the slightest degree the absence of available spring water, and is the sole beverage which invigorates and refreshes the wayfarer through these forest solitudes. Frequently did we experience a glow of thankfulness to all-bounteous Nature, as often as some hospitable native handed to us for our refreshment, exhausted and thirsty as we were after our fatiguing wanderings, a green cocoa-nut, that vegetable spring of the tropical forest.[12] The kernel of the ripe nut, thoroughly dried and pressed, gives forth a strong, clear, tasteless oil, which is used by the natives for anointing their skin and hair, and at the same time forms so important an article in European commerce, that above 5,000,000 ripe cocoa-nuts are annually exported through foreign mercantile houses in exchange for European fabrics. The hard shell of the cocoa-nut is the sole drinking cup of the Nicobar islanders, and the cooling, refreshing juice, which is extracted by an incision in the sheath of the palm-blossom before the latter has expanded, is the sole fermented beverage of which they make use. When brought into a state of fermentation it possesses similar intoxicating effects with the Chicha of the American Indian. Here, as among other half-savage races, we had occasion to remark, that the chief food of the aborigines is also made available for supplying them with their favourite liquid stimulant, and just as the native of India effects this purpose with rice, the African from the Yucca, or the Yam, the South-Sea Islander with the Kawa, and the Mexican with the Maize or the Agave, so the inhabitant of the Nicobars avails himself of the cocoa-nut at once for the supply of the first necessities of his existence, and the excitement of his brain by artificial stimulant.