AN EXCURSION. 13 



This palm is also of great economic value to the inha^ 

 bitants of the countries where it grows, as it also yields 

 a kind of inferior sago from its pith. 



The sweet Arenga (Arenga sacchanfera) is a 

 denizen of the shores of the Malay Peninsula and Is- 

 lands, Siam, and the Moluccas. This beautiful and stately 

 palm has a straight, elegant, and columnar trunk, naked 

 below, but above and near the base of the sheaths 

 entirely covered with horse^hair-like fibres which issue 

 in great abundance from the margins of the sheaths. 

 In young trees the whole trunk is covered with these 

 sheaths, which gradually drop off as the tree grows old. 

 It repays cultivation by yielding sugar, sago, and ex- 

 cellent fibres for cables and cordage, 



The Cocoanut palm (Cocas nucifera) is a com- 

 mon and well-known tree, and requires no description. 

 It is, however, not generally known that there are several 

 species of cocoanuts, including those flourishing in the 

 South Sea Islands, and the whole of the Brazilian coasts. 

 Though it thrives inland some hundreds of miles from the 

 coast, and sometimes at elevations varying from three to 

 four thousand feet above the level of the sea, the sea-shore 

 appears to be its chosen and congenial home. Owing to the 

 great commercial value of its products, the tree is largely 

 cultivated in almost all the Islands of the Malayan Archi- 

 pelago, in Ceylon, the Laccadives, and on the Malabar 

 and Coromandel Coasts. It is needless to say that it is 

 also cultivated, though to a much less extent, in Bengal. 

 It grows wild in distant, isolated, and uninhabited islands. 



