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We had brought a supply of fruit, which we had plucked on our way, as well as sago-bread and other articles, which altogether gave us a luxurious repast. No spot could have been more lovely than that where we sat. The bank was covered with soft, almost velvety grass, being shaded constantly from the noonday sun, and the air felt cool, though soft.
Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a rather astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and chilies. Sago-bread is made in large quantities, by baking it into cakes in a small clay oven containing six or eight slits side by side, each about three-quarters of an inch wide, and six or eight inches square.
"Oh yes, yes!" she exclaimed; "it will be great thing with sago-bread. You go, Ali; go!" It was arranged that Mr Hooker, with Oliver and I, should accompany Ali in his search. We started, therefore, accompanied by Merlin. Ali supplied himself with a couple of large cloths. He also, as he went along, cut some creepers, one a stout one, and another, of considerable length, very fine.
We hazarded a score of conjectures and debated them with lively interest. Presently the natives brought us rice and sago-bread and peas. As I ate and looked out into the darkness where fires were twinkling, I wondered which was the light I had seen that night when I watched from the summit of the headland. Though a gentle rain was falling, the whole village was alive with people.
Ali signed to me to give him another, which he drank off; and I then handed him a little sago-bread and some dried fish. He, however, preferred the fresh fish, which he ate raw. I, as yet, had no inclination to do that, and preferred biting away at a dried piece with my sago.
They were now permitted to rest until about eight o'clock when they were carried to the Rajah's house, where they found a supper provided for them of sago-bread and peas, but in all hardly enough for one man. Their allowance afterwards was for each man a cocoa nut and an ear of Indian corn at noon, and the same at night.
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