Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-11-30

is half English and half East Indian, but
he speaks our language with ceckney ac-
cent He is little 8 by king: Indeed you
would hardly call him king at all. for he
Is only big planter. AS 1 chatted with
him on the steamer l asked him what his
business was, and he told me he owned the
CocoS Islands and all they contained. /
had never heard of the islands.
asked the owner of the Cocos Islands
where his property was and what it was.
He told me that it lay just about 100 miles
southwest of Sumatra and ] 200 miles from
Singapore. 1t consists of twenty-four small
coral islands which have been planted in
cocoanuts- The man has now hundreds of
thousands of cocoanut trees and he har-
vests something like 100000 cocoanuts
every year. He told me how he managed
his Islands, and said that his gross receipts
annually amounted to $4,000 and upward.
The cocoanuts are gathered when they fall
and the meat Is taken out and dried in the
sum- 1t is then barreled up and sent away
by the shipload. 1t requires about coo
men to do the work, and these and their
families constitute the population. The
king lives all alone with his family and the
natives on these islanus. His nearest shop
ping place is Batavia where he comes In
little schooner every three months or so.
The trip is one of seven days, if the wind is
right. If he strikes a calm he may be
month on the way.
l asked him how he liked it. He replied
1t was not bad, but rather lonesome. He
thinks that c0coanuts could be grown on the
Philippine Islands at a profit, and tells me
dollar tree year. The nuts are planted
fifteen feet apart. Inc trees require no
cultivation to speak of, and each tree will
produce from 30 to 80 nuts annually
l saw great many cocoanut plantations
during my stay in the Philippines and was
told that the trees each netted just about a
dollar year. They begin to produce at
seven years and continue to yield fruit for
many years. 1t is estimated that there are
more than 20,0O0,0O0 cocoanut trees in Java
and Madura and / find the natives driving
cocoanutS to make copra everywhere l 60
The copra is shipped to Europe, where it Is
used to make cocoanut Oil, soap and other
such things. From the husks brushes and
mating are made, the fiber being very
coarse and durable. 1t takes 1000 cocoa
nuts to make one ton of fiber, and the best
fiber Is worth from $50 to 500 per ton.
In the Timor Islands.
Coming westward from Thursday Island
just north of Australia. the first large bodies
of land 1 saw were a part of the Timor
group or the Lesser Sunda islands l sailed
right through this little archipelago. going
between Wetta Island and the great Is
land of Timor. Timor is three times as big
Porto Rico, and is about equally owned
by the Dutch and Portuguese. The Dutch
part of it Is far better ruled and far more
prosperous than the Portuguese part Each
section has it's capital, but that of the Por-
tuguese-Dilli-is a miserable village of CLAW
huts. matched with straw, while that of
the Dutch-Kupang-is a fine little city, with
a population of 1900
About Dill there are coffee plantations
run by Chinese who squeeze the life out
of the people. The natives are a mixture
of Malays. Papuans and Polynesans, the
most of whom are semi-savage. Some are