THE SAGO PALM. 8;J 



and its vicinity. It furnishes not only the vegetable-ivory nut of 

 these islands and the sago, which is an important item in the native 

 dietar}'-, but its leaves supply the thatch for the roofs and sides of 

 the houses. Although belonging to the same genus, Sagus, it is 

 evidently distinct in species from the sago palm of Fiji {Sagus 

 vitlensis), which, according to Mr. Home, grows on the low-lying 

 swampy land, and attains a height of about 35 feet.^ In the Solomon 

 Islands, the height of full-grown sago palms varies between 60 and 

 70 feet ; whilst the situations in which they are usually found, lie 

 on the hill-slopes and in the drier districts of the islands. In the 

 islands of Fauro and Treasury groves of sago j^alms occur both on 

 the lower slo]jes and in the higher districts. They occur on the 

 summit of Treasury at a height of a thousand feet above the sea ; 

 and I observed a few at Fauro at a height of 1400 feet. I found 

 them in the middle of the breadth of St. Christoval, between Wano 



and Makira The sago palm in these islands is the 



finest specimen of the Pahnacea:. I often used to admire its heavy 

 bole terminating above in its handsome crown of massive branches.^ 

 In the extraction and preparation of the sago, the natives of 

 Bougainville Straits employ the following method. After the palm 

 has been felled and all the pith removed, either by scooping it out 

 or splitting the trunk, the pith is then torn up into small pieces and 

 placed in a trough extemporised from the broad sheathing base of one 

 of the branches of the felled tree. The trough is then tilted up and 

 is kept filled witli water, which running away at the lower end 

 passes through a kind of strainer, made of a fold of the vegetable 

 mattino- that invests the bases of the branches of the cocoa-nut tree, 

 and is then received in another trough of shnilar material. The 

 fibrous portion of the pith is thus left beliind, and the sago is de- 

 posited as a sediment in the lower trough. When this trough is full 

 of sago, the superfluous water is poured off, and the whole is placed 

 over a fire so as to get rid of the remaining moisture. This method 

 of sago-washing is similar to that which is employed in the islands 

 of the Mala}^ Archipelago. The sago is now fit for consumption, and 

 is wrapped u[» in the leaves in the form of cylindrical packages li to 

 2 feet in length. For the convenience of the water-supply, sago- 

 washin^- is carried out usually on the side of a stream. The refuse 



1 " A Year in Fiji," by John Home, F.L.S. London, 1S81, p. 68. 



- Although this palm, when full grown, has the appearance of great age and durability, it 

 does not live for more than 20 years, when it flowers, bears, and dies. 



