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The sago-tree grows in plenty, and constitutes the chief article of food to the inhabitants, who do not cultivate rice. The use of betel is unknown to them. Coconut-trees, bamboos, and the common fruits of Sumatra are found here.

I felt much more at my ease after I had said this to Oliver. I had long looked upon him as a very superior lad. His earnest piety, his courage and his coolness, had made me greatly respect him. Had I been told to choose a companion in the situation in which I was placed, I certainly should have selected him. Our meal over, we went back to our sago-tree, and commenced our work.

But I don't know who would dig it up, if it were not for the industrious Chinese, who come over in great numbers to get money in this island. Diamonds are found there, and a valuable metal called antimony. The sago-tree, the pepper plant, and the sugar-cane, and the cocoa-nut tree are abundant. The greatest curiosity that Borneo possesses are the eatable nests.

She was charmed with the grass, and the very next morning she came to breakfast with it nicely prepared, and a good deal of cord made and hanging round her neck. She found some preparations for carpenter's work lying about. "Is that great log for the cart?" said she. "Yes! it is a section of a sago-tree." "What, our sago?" "The basis. See, in the center it is all soft pith."

The people of Muka live in that abject state of poverty that is almost always found where the sago-tree is abundant. Very few of them take the trouble to plant any vegetables or fruit, but live almost entirely on sago and fish, selling a little tripang or tortoiseshell to buy the scanty clothing they require.

At length, however, we repaired to our sago-tree. Macco used his newly-formed axe with as much judgment as at first; we as before working away at intervals with our knives. At length he exclaimed, "Me t'ink tree fall now. You go to end of rope and haul, haul. Take care far enough off; and I cut, cut."

The corypha spreads through the Llanos of Caracas from Mesa de Peja as far as Guayaval; farther north and north-west, near Guanare and San Carlos, its place is taken by another species of the same genus, with leaves alike palmate but larger. It is the sago-tree of America, furnishing flour, wine, thread for weaving hammocks, baskets, nets, and clothing.

I cried out; "don't pick more than are necessary, and we may have them fresh." We had soon torn off the fibrous covering, and knocked a hole in one of the eyes. How deliciously cool and sweet did the juice inside them taste! "That is refreshing!" exclaimed Oliver. "I am glad we have begun on the sago-tree, or we might have been lazy, and not have taken the trouble to cut it down."

He came to the boat. It had an awning over the stern, and was clearly used as a sleeping-place. A series of wooden pipes standing on uprights led from this up to the cliff. The pipes were in fact mere sections of the sago-tree with the soft pith driven out.

However, I urged him to go back at once, that we might continue our work on the sago-tree, for I was sure that, though by eating flesh and fish we might support our lives, we should not retain our health without bread, or a substitute for it, which the sago would afford. From the height of the sun, in addition to the hints of our own appetites, we guessed that it was already past noon.