somewhere in the Central Plains. The path to the coco-

nut orchard is slippery from yesterday's rain, and the two

girls dressed in plain black shirts and below-the-knee

shorts with their heavily-laden shoulder-poles and kero-

sine lamps need all their concentration to keep their

balance in the inky darkness. Tied to both ends of each

girl's shoulder-pole are bunches often or fifteen bamboo

containers called 'graborks', about a foot long and five

inches across, made by chopping sections from a large

bamboo trunk just below two of the joints. The girls'

family own more than a hundred of these 'graborks',

which two of the men folk bought at the market in the

local town last April before the palm-sugar season began;

the market vendor had already lashed them together in

the form of rafts, and each man punted one of the

'grabork' rafts home along the river and "klong" or canal,

helped by the low water level in the hot season which

enabled them to get a good grip with their punt-poles on

the mud beneath.

As the girls now approach the orchard with its

seventy-odd big coconut-palms in rows between the irri-

gation ditches, it seems to grow even darker beneath the

canopy of palm-leaves. More kerosene lamps in the black-

ness indicate there are other people around — members

of the family, and of neighboring families in the adjoining

orchard.

In daylight, one would see that each tree has a stout

bamboo ladder fixed against it — a single six-inch-thick

pole about thirty feet long, with thin bamboo rungs

sticking out on either side. The bottom end of each pole

is imbedded firmly in the earth; the top end is wedged

tightly among the foliage.

Each girl sets her load of thirty or forty 'graborks' at

the foot of a separate tree and climbs nimbly up the

ladder, her lamp in one hand and a single 'grabork' held

by its string between her teeth. She reaches the crown of

the tree, where two or three flower-clusters lie hidden

inside pointed vertical green sheaths about eighteen

inches long.

She now performs a feat of acrobatics that requires

all her muscle, concentration and skill — made even

more difficult and dangerous during the rainy season by

the risk of wet, muddy feet slipping on the equally wet

ladder. Standing with one foot on a rung and the other

leg hooked firmly round the vertical pole of the ladder,

she has both hands free. She hangs her lamp on another

rung, reaches forward and upward and grasps one of the

long flower-sheaths which look rather like large corn-

cobs still growing. From experience she knows the spike

of flowers inside this sheath is at the right stage to yield

sugar. Pulling a razor-sharp knife from her belt, she deftly

slices off three inches from the tip. Next, she ties a string

firmly round the flower and slowly pulls it sideways, but

not very far so as not to break it; she ties the other end of

the string to the nearest massive palm-leaf. During the

next few days she will pull it a little further each day, until

the truncated tip is pointing downwards.

She now turns to another flower-sheath on the same

tree. She already bent this one downward about a week

ago, and its chopped-off end dangles inside a 'grabork'

which she tied on the sheath yesterday afternoon. Now

the 'grabork' is nearly full of the pale yellow liquid sugar

which has dripped in from the flowers, and it's quite

heavy. Quickly she pulls the knot loose, detaches the

'grabork' and hangs it on a rung for the moment; with her

knife she slices another centimeter off the flower-spike,

because yesterday's cut has dried and closed up. She

replaces the full 'grabork' with the empty one which she

brought up the ladder few moments ago.

Now it's down the ladder again with the full

'grabork', taking care not to slip, and up the next tree with

a fresh empty 'grabork', where the process is repeated;

and so on, for the next two hours. By six o'clock it's day-

light (though in January it will still be dark, but in the dry

season at least it won't be slippery). The family's younger

children help in carrying all the heavy, frill "graborks"

back to the house.

Here the liquid sugar is boiled in a huge round iron

pot about three feet across, called a "lotus-leaf because of

its shape, over a stove fueled by sawdust or rice husks.

After two hours when the sugar has become sticky, the

pot is lifted off the stove by two people and carried to the

churn nearby, where it rests on a raised surface sur-

rounded by a wooden framework. A wooden paddle on

a spindle dips into the sugar and is twisted to left and

right by someone who pulls the ends of a rope wrapped

round the spindle. After fifteen minutes' hard work the

sugar becomes solid — by which time the churner has

probably already called for help!

In the afternoon, between four and six p.m., all the

trees are climbed again and the boiling and churning are

repeated. This is a tiring occupation, in which "early to

bed, early to rise" is a harsh reality. And it's not even very

profitable, either.

The finished product is soft and brown, and tastes

rather like fudge. It's put into square kerosene cans, each

making cakes, although nowadays it has largely been

replaced by cane-sugar. But the gathering of palm-sugar

in Central Thailand still goes on. It must surely he very

ancient and universal, for its roots are in the very langu-

age itself. The Thai word for "brown" is the "color of

palm-sugar", and the word for "sugar" means "juice of the