Cocoa-nut palms grow in patches all over the islands, and particularly along the coast, and they make a charming picture viewed from the sea, with their swaying trunks, and the quaint cluster of leaves at the top: storm-tossed as they are, owing to {184} being top-heavy, they all lean in one direction, the way the wind blows strongest, and give the islands a wild appearance. The rustle of their leaves as one walks beneath them makes a strange noise, and the falling of the nuts on a windy day is a thing one has to be careful to avoid, as a good-sized nut would seriously injure, if not kill, the person on whom it fell. I have seen a natural grove of these trees nearly a mile long; the dark stems and sage-green leaves against a blue sky, a bright yellow road underneath which scintillated in the sun, and at its far end was all blurred by the heat which rose as heat does from a stove making everything quiver, presenting a beautiful picture not easily forgotten. All along the coast of Malekula and Tanna the cocoa-nuts grow in abundance. At Samari, New Guinea, there is one giant tree standing by two others and away from the rest, the height of which has been the means of many a sovereign changing hands. For the first thing a new chum, fresh trader, or captain is asked is to guess its height, and few ever guess it correctly, for a more deceptive-looking tree was never born. It grows just behind the village and towers over everything, and is a landmark that guides many a wanderer by land and sea. [Illustration 63: THE ISLAND OF SAMARI, BRITISH NEW GUINEA] {185} The copra trade is of course carried on all over these and the adjoining islands, but one sees more of it going on in the New Hebrides than in the Solomons or New Guinea. Copra is the white of the cocoa-nut and is not eaten by the natives at all; all they do with the nuts is to drink the milk and use the fibre. Nearly everything out there is made either of the leaves or fibre, and even the trunks of the tree come in very handy for manufacturing articles. When gathering copra the natives scale the trees to get at the nuts, and having collected a good supply they sit down, break them open, and lay them out to dry in the sun.