Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
The Areca The Date. The Sago. The Talipot. The wonderful productions of this tribe can only be appreciated by those who thoroughly understand the habits and necessities of the natives; and, upon examination, it will be seen that Nature has opened wide her bountiful hand, and in the midst of a barren soil she has still remembered and supplied the wants of the inhabitants.
The wide bed of the river was shaded on either side by groves of immense trees, whose branches stretched far over the channel; and not only beneath their shade, but in every direction, tents formed of talipot leaves were pitched, and a thousand men, women, and children lay grouped together; some were bathing in the river, some were sitting round their fires cooking a scanty meal, others lay asleep upon the sand, but all appeared to be congregated together for one purpose; and so various were the castes and costumes that every nation of the East seemed to have sent a representative.
Deer-hides were pegged down to form a carpet upon the floors, and the walls were neatly covered with talipot leaves. The outhouses consisted of the kennel, stables for three horses, kitchen, and sheds for twenty coolies and servants. The fireplace was a rough piece of art, upon which we prided ourselves extremely. A party of eight persons could have sat before it with comfort.
The interest of our little party centred most upon some old manuscript books written upon talipot palm leaves in the Pali, Sanskrit, and Singhalese languages. The pages were here and there illustrated with what appeared to be appropriate designs, very odd to be sure, but yet not without a certain crude artistic taste. The books were bound in silver open-work covers or frames.
The talipot palm is very marked in its nature, and is specially interesting to naturalists; fine specimens are to be seen all over the island.
They take about a dozen leaves of the talipot palm to form a tent, and at night-time, the packs, being taken off the bullocks, are piled like a pillar in the centre, and the talipot leaves are formed in a circular roof above them. The bullocks are then secured round the tent to long poles, which are thrown upon the ground and pinned down by crooked pegs.
There is one palm tree here the talipot that blooms when about forty years old with a loud noise and immegiately dies. Arvilly said that they made her think of some political candidates. Dorothy and Robert Strong and Miss Meechim wanted to go to Kandy, the capital of Ceylon, only seventy milds away, to see the tooth of Boodha. Miss Meechim said she wanted to weep over it.
The long avenues of palms of different varieties palmyra, talipot, sago, royal, sealing-wax and the specimens of bamboo, India rubber, and rain-tree, are unique and wonderful. The rain-tree is so called because the vast spread of its branches and the density of its foliage collect the dew to such an extent as actually to water the ground upon which it drops.
The ancient Mexicans before Pizarro's time used the leaves of the aloe for a similar purpose. The talipot palm is the queen of its tribe. The betelnut is the product of the areca palm, and resembles a nutmeg in shape and size. A couple of hundred generally form the annual yield of a single tree.
This was the letter which Mark read, while the northeast wind roared through the boughs overhead, driving the gritty shell-dust in his face, and making the thin paper in his fingers flap with its vicious jerks: 'Talipot Bungalow, Newera Ellia, Ceylon. 'MY DEAR MARK, I am not going to reproach you for your long silence, as I dare say you waited for me to write first.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking