THE PALMS OF BRITISH INDIA AND CEYLON. 81 



Madura ; Orissa ; the Circars ; shady valleys on the east side of 

 the Peninsula ; Ceylon ; Malaya. 



UsES\ — The most important product of this palm are the fibrous 

 cords or fibro-vascular bundles found naked at the base of the leaf- 

 sheath and within the petioles, flowering stalks and even the stems 

 as well. These constitute the strong kittul-fibre of Cejdon and the 

 salapa of Orissa, a fibre which also comes from Burma and Bombay. 

 It is manufactured into ropes, brushes, brooms, baskets, caps, and 

 similar articles. Tt has been shipped as a brush fibre from Ceylon 

 to England since 1860. It has been found that five or more 

 strands, fastened together by special machinery, make an excellent 

 substitute for whalebone in corsets. It has further been discovered 

 that the kittul-fibre is superior to the Bahia piassava (fibre of 

 Attalea funifera) being less brittle. Kittul-fibre, therefore, is in 

 much request, in India as well as in Europe, where it is used in 

 brush-making; some of the finest qualities have been substituted 

 for bristles. For this purpose the fibre is steeped in linseed-oil 

 in order to make it so pliable that it can be used either with or- 

 without bristles in the manufacture of soft, long-handled brooms. 

 These have the advantage of being extremely durable and much 

 cheaper than ordinary hair-brooms. According to Dodge it is also 

 made up into machine brushes for polishing linen and cotton 

 yarns, for cleaning scutched fiax, brushing velvets, etc. In Ceylon 

 and India fishing-lines are made of the fibre, and strong wiry 

 ropes which are used for tying wild elephants. Watt gives the- 

 following quotations of the London Market on April 20, 1901 : 

 For long quality 8^d to 9d per lb ; for No. 1, 6^-7d ; No. 2, 2^d 

 to 3^d ; No. 3, Id. The exports from India are unimportant, whilst 

 from Ceylon they are considerable. The maximum till 1909 was 

 for the year 1898, viz., 3,794 cwt. 



The pith or farinaceous part of the trunk of old trees is consider- 

 ed to be almost equal to the best sago of commerce ; the natives 

 bake it into bread and boil it into a thick gruel. " These form, " 

 says Roxburgh, " a great part of the diet of these people ; and 

 during the famine they sufiered little, while those trees lasted. 

 I have reason to believe this substance to be highly nutritious. 

 I have eaten the gruel and think it fully as palatable as that made 

 of the sago we get from the Malay countries." 



Toddy is also prepared from these palms. This juice is either 

 fermented and distilled into an alcoholic liquor or boiled down into a 

 dark syrup which solidifies into palm-sugar or jaggery, which is an 

 important product, especially in Bombay and Ceylon. Sawyer,^ des- 

 cribing the process of "training" and " tapping " in North Travan- 

 core, says that at the end of the first five days of tapping the yield is 



i We foUow Watt, Comm. Prod, of India, 1908, p. 286-87. 

 ^ Ind. For. (1896), XXI, 134-8. 



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