THE FXLllS OF ASIA. 127 



Borneo, the sagivire, or gomuto ; in Portuguese, 

 2Mlmeira hrava ; and by tlie English, palmyra. 

 The trunk is from twenty-five to forty feet high 

 •when full grown, and tapers shghtly upwards. 

 The leaves are fan-shaped, about four feet long, 

 and placed upon stalks of about the same length, 

 which are prickly at their edges. The leaf is 

 divided into from seventy to eighty rays, which 

 are ragged at the end, and the largest of which 

 are placed in the centre. It was on these 

 leaves that the Indian islanders principally 

 wrote, before the use of paper became common 

 from commerce with strangers. The leaf was 

 prepared for this purpose much in the same 

 way as the talipat leaf, the mode of treating 

 which we have already described. The middle 

 portion of the leaf is formed into punkahs, or 

 fans, in Ceylon, the spines of the leaf stalk 

 being previously cut off. They are sold either 

 plain or lacquered, and a Buddhist priest is 

 never seen without one. They are usually 

 made either of a heart-shaped, or a circular 

 form, and are often mounted on carved ivory 

 handles. The fruit of this palm is about the 

 size of a child's head, three-cornered and 

 three-seeded. When young, the shell is so soft 

 that it may be readily pierced by the finger, 

 and the pi-dpy matter which it then contains is 



