Copaiba

“ The walk is a pleasant one through the forest at this season, but is probably mud to the knees in the rains. It contains one thousand and forty-four inhabitants; and the productions of the neighborhood are wax, sarsaparilla, copal, copaiba, and salt fish. I have seen all these in the hands of the Indians, but in small quantities; there being so little demand for them.
The Cocamillas, who form the largest part of the population of Laguna, are lazy and drunken. They are capital boatmen, however, when they have no liquor ”

“ 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. ”

“ Copiapo is seldom subject to earthquakes, and little or no rain falls in it, the want of which is supplied by heavy dews, and the many streams with which it abounds; no part of Chili is richer in minerals than this, and turquoises and other gems are also found in it.
The capital is Copiapo, on the river of the same name, and which has a port at the mouth of the Copiapo, which is the best on the coast. The city itself is twelve leagues from the sea, the houses being irregularly built, and containing about 400 families, in 26° 50' south latitude, and 70° 18' west longitude. ”

“ While we were vainly looking out for a landing-place, a white man, accompanied by two Polynesians, launched a small outrigger canoe from the reef edge, and paddled out to us. From the white man we learned that the island belonged to a Mr. Halicott, an American gentleman, for whom he had been acting as care-taker for the previous five years, and that he and his native assistants were engaged in planting cocoa-nuts, and hoped in time to do a remunerative trade in copra. ”

“ Copas took to haunting their lodgings and was nearly always there when a new hat or a new jacket came home from the shops. She would insist on Matilda’s trying them on, and would go into loud ecstatic praise and long reminiscences of the fine garments she had had when she was a young woman, and Mr. Copas was the most attentive husband in the world.
An old peacock without its tail is a sorry sight, and the young birds scorn him. ”

“ I said to myself; and then aloud, "Tell me all about copra. I have longed to know what copra is; how it grows, what it looks like, what it is for."
"You have come to the wrong person," she replied, with wide eyes. "I never heard of it. Or did you say 'cobra'? Of course I know what a cobra is—it's a snake. I've seen them at the Zoo."
I put her right. "Copra, the stuff that the traders in the South Seas deal in."
"I never heard of it," she said. "But then why should I? I know nothing about the South Seas." ”

“ Copra is made by splitting open cocoa-nuts and drying them either artificially or in the sun. It is used in large quantities in Europe as an element in oil cake and other cattle foods. The localities at present suited for the manufacture of copra are on the south-west coast from Hula to Roma, all along the shores of Milne Bay, at Bentley Bay, and along the north-east coast as far as Dampier Straits, and many of the Islands of the D'Entrecasteaux and Louisiade Group. At each of these places cocoa-nuts grow in abundance, and could be purchased from the natives at a low price. ”

“ There are only two bars in Copiapó and these are in each of the hotels. It is needless to say that the proprietor of the Ingles does the most business in that line because he consumes half of his sales. Copiapó is a poor saloon town because the natives make their own wine and chicha. They often repair to a section of the oasis named the Chimba, where they roast a lamb, hog or an ox and there amidst a copious supply of fermented beverages indulge in an orgy that baffles description.
Hovels on the Outskirts of Copiapó
Some of the hovels near the river bank are the extremity of poverty. ”

“ THE staple product of the South Sea Islands is copra. Probably not one person in four knows what it is. First of all, then, let me explain that copra is the dried flesh of the cocoanut. This product yields an oil which enters very largely into the manufacture of soap. It is also used in the preparation of vegetable butter for cooking, and, owing to the increasing scarcity of animal fats, the demand is a very large and growing one. During the Great War, copra was exported in huge quantities to make glycerine for munitions. Another product, used by confectioners, is known as desiccated cocoanut. ”

“ Kristian Koppig shut his window. Nothing but a generous heart and a
Dutchman's phlegm could have done so at that moment. And even thou,
Kristian Koppig!—for the window closed very slowly.
He wrote to his mother, thus:
"In this wicked city, I see none so fair as the poor girl who lives opposite me, and who, alas! though so fair, is one of those whom the taint of caste has cursed. She lives a lonely, innocent life in the midst of corruption, like the lilies I find here in the marshew, and I have great pity for her. ”

“ From the Arab Sandarus, which their pharmacopœia applies to the transparent resin Sandaraca or Sandarach. Our copal is a corruption of the Mexican Kopali—any gum. It is called anime or animi in the London market, and by the workman French varnish. The copals of Mexico, of New Zealand (popularly termed Cowace copal) , and of the West African coast, are inferior kinds. The ‘Damar,’ or gum found about Cape Delgado, floats in water, and may be unripe copal washed out by the wet season. ”

“ Copiapó is retrogressant and will become even more so. Work has long since stopped at the mines and the only thing that keeps the place alive is that it is the capital of a province. If asked for a description of the city, I would say that it is an old adobe town in an oasis surrounded by barren mountains, with a broad alameda bordered with giant pepper trees. ”

“ It’s much the nicest isn’t it—to have plenty of work, bread to eat, a home of one’s own, and to be able to bring up one’s children and to die in one’s bed?”
“And never to be beaten,” added Coupeau gaily. “But I would never beat you, if you would only try me, Madame Gervaise. You’ve no cause for fear. I don’t drink and then I love you too much. Come, shall it be marriage? I’ll get you divorced and make you my wife.”
He was speaking low, whispering at the back of her neck while she made her way through the crowd of men with her basket held before her. ”

“ Our guest Koapena, the chief of the Aroma District, although past the prime of life, is a fine stalwart man over six feet high, and decidedly the finest specimen of savage humanity we have seen in New Guinea. He stoops slightly with age, but his bearing is full of grace and dignity, and altogether he looks like a person to select rather for a friend than a foe. ”

“ Come, tell me!" said Coppinger scornfully.
"A fine, well-built girl, dark-haired, dark-eyed,with cheeks like apricots, lively in mood, with nimble tongue, good-natured, not bookish, not caring for brush or piano, but who can take a rough word and return it; who will not wince at an oath, and shrink away at coarse words flung about where she is. ”

“ The druggist was silent for a moment, rubbing his thick blond beard; then suddenly looking at his wife with kindly eyes:
“Say, Mimi, the child is the foster sister of our Leon. Suppose we give her a home?”
179“I should think so,” was the quiet reply of the pretty wife.
“Well done,” cried Bayard, as, caring little if he were seen by his clerks and store-boys, he leaned towards his wife and kissed her forehead, “well done! you’re a good woman, Mimi. We will take little Norine with us, and bring her up with Leon. That won’t ruin us, eh? ”

“ Copra—the word itself is common to sea traders, but to landlubbers it is a strange expression found in stories of the South Seas.
Copra is the meat of coconuts dried in the sun. The natives break open the nuts and lay them out on woven mats to rot. The rotting process in the tropic heat brings out the oils and acid of the coconut. It takes about three months of drying process to make the copra rotten enough to be ready for market. The natives load it in bales of reeds and carry it off the island in canoes to waiting ships. ”

“ After breakfast I received a visit from an English Trader, who lives about two miles from me. Poor fellow, in my honour he had put on a coat, and he was literally running with perspiration when he reached my house, and he did not succeed in getting cool again before he left although he stayed some time. He seems to be doing a very fair trade here in copra, and although he has not been long on the island, he has already several tons of the dried coconut (copra) . After he left I was attacked with a good-for-nothing fit and did nothing all day. ”

“ Copra, the dried kernel of the coconut, is the leading, and almost the only, article of commerce in every island of the South Pacific, and as such is the principal contributor to the income of the natives from which everything else they use is bought. The copra of the South Pacific islands is incomparably finer than that of the South American, West Indian or African tropics, and the plantations of Samoa, Fiji and Tahiti are the largest [228] and most productive in the world. ”

“ As she did so, the marvellous delicacy of Kristian Koppig moved him to draw in one of his shutters. Both young heads came out at one moment, while at the same instant—
"Rap, rap, rap, rap, rap!" clanked the knocker on the wicket. The black eyes of the maiden and the blue over the way, from looking into each other for the first time in life, glanced down to the arched doorway upon Monsieur the manager. Then the black eyes disappeared within, and Kristian Koppig thought again, and re-opening his shutter, stood up at the window prepared to become a bold spectator of what might follow. ”

“ Brother Copas eyed her and took snuff. "He and the like of him don't touch the stops, my dear. He and the like of him do better; they supply the afflatus."
O ye holy and humble Men of heart, bless ye the Lord: praise Him, and magnify Him for ever!
Mr. Simeon worked mechanically, heaving and pressing upon the bellows of the great organ. His mind ran upon Master Copas's disparagement of Beowulf and the Anglo-Saxons. It was ever the trouble that he remembered an answer for Brother Copas after Brother Copas had gone. ... ”

“ All Spanish Fruits grow better here than in Spain.
Through the midst of Copayapo runs a River of the same Denomination, and twenty Leagues in length from the Andes, and at its Mouth hath a convenient Harbor before the South Sea.
The South part of Copayapo borders the Valley Guasco, which is less fruitful than the first, but hath a convenient Haven, into which falls a fresh River, penn’d in by Sluces for the watering of the Cane-Fields. Moreover, there are plenty of Partridges; also wild Sheep and grey Squirrel-skins are of a great value. ”

“ Now when I tell you, my dear friend, that the weather-glass hawker I spoke of was the villain Coppelius, you will not blame me for seeing impending mischief in his inauspicious reappearance. He was differently dressed; but Coppelius's figure and features are too deeply impressed upon my mind for me to be capable of making a mistake in the matter. Moreover, he has not even changed his name. He proclaims himself here, I learn, to be a Piedmontese mechanician, and styles himself Giuseppe Coppola. ”

“ Morton directed the two Kaffirs to look in the direction whence the reports came; but the keen vision of Simon and Daniel could detect no flashes of flame, and in these days of smokeless powder no haze hangs over scenes of fight.
The country was wild in the extreme—granite-peaked kopjes interlaced with innumerable little dongas met the vision, gaze where you would. The kopjes, whose sides and bases were clad with geraniums and heath of various kinds, formed a glorious mosaic against the steel-tinted blue of the African sky. ”

“ Capua is a small unimportant town, distinct from the ancient city of that name, which was situated at some distance, where remains of an amphitheatre are still visible, and which before the building of that of Vespasian, was considered superior to any in Rome itself; indeed old Capua is said, at one time, to have vied with Rome and Carthage themselves, in size and magnificence. It was here that the victorious army of Hannibal, is said to have been enervated by the luxuries of Italy. ”

“ A screen and some hangings with a southern flash to them set the stage for eighteenth-century Peru. Copeau himself has the same Punch-like visage that he presents to you in his own study, but now he manages to make you think him a Spanish puppet, an exasperated and wily doll. The same Punch appears in Les Frères Karamazov, but a Punch of the intellect, a tragic marionette dangling on the strings of rationalism. At the end, when Ivan goes mad, you may see most clearly the subtle exaggeration which is at the heart of the acting of Copeau’s company. ”

“ After this ceremony she gives him the chuspa (Coca pouch) , invests him with the poporo and consecrates him a coquero. One should see with what pride the young Indian leaves the threshold of the sacred cabin, which he entered as a child scarcely a few hours before and from which he departs a man, that is to say, carrying the chuspa and the poporo, and able to chew with impunity, before the old people, this precious leaf which had been forbidden him until then. ”