48 ON THE VEGETATION OF MALAYSIA, 



ing of Mayam is lower and lower, and till the last comes forth at 

 the root of the tree and it then dies. Generally two male spadices 

 come forth at a time and they yield juice from three to five 

 months, and, ere they cease, their places are supplied by fresh ones. 

 When the flower opens the spadix is cut at the base, and tubes of 

 seasoned or smoked bamboo (from which the upper phragmata are 

 removed, making a long vessel), are applied. As they fill the juice 

 is poured into earthen jars, and evaporated in iron pans over a 

 fire until nothing bat grain-sugar remains. 



If toddy be wanted, the spadix is tied at the base and beaten 

 with a small stick for two or three days in succession, and the 

 juice collected in the usual way. It is left in jars until fermented^ 

 in which state mostly it is taken by the natives. In the Philip- 

 pines it is consumed largely and I believe to intoxication. I have 

 seen the natives lying about in a stupid state of inebriation from 

 its use, especially the old men. It has a flavour which suggests 

 beer, viaegar and malt, while there is a general aroma recalling 

 the smell of a brewery and mouldy wood. A powerful spirit is 

 distilled from it, largely used by the Chinese in Malaysia, and to 

 some extent abused also. 



Dr. de Vry, a Dutch naturalist from Batavia, strongly recom- 

 mends the employment of Arenga for the sole production of 

 sugar ; as he says the tree takes nothing from the soil, while beet 

 and cane utterly exhaust it. He calculates that three quarters of 

 an acre planted with Gomuti should yield annually 2,400 kilo- 

 grammes of sugar in a soil quite unfit for any other culture. I 

 am not aware of the number of trees or their distance apart in 

 the supposed area. 



The Jaggery also produces sago ; in fact no other tree is the 

 source of it in Java ; but it is dark in colour, of poor quality and 

 small in quantity in proportion to the yield of other palms. In 

 Sunda it is the only sago ofi"ered in the markets ; but in eastern 

 Java other kinds are imported. 



The enumeration of the useful qualities of this Palm-tree is not 

 yet finished. The stem of young trees is wrapped round in the leaf- 

 sheaths, the sides of which aflbrd a black fibre like horse-hair, to 



