CHAP. XXV.] THE SAGO PALM. . 117 



rarely so tall, and having immense pinnate spiny leaves, 

 which completely cover the trunk till it is many years old. 

 It has a creeping root-stem like the Mpa palm, and when 

 about ten or fifteen years of age sends wp an immense 

 terminal spike of flowers, after which the tree dies. It 

 grows in swamps, or in swampy hollows on the rocky 

 slopes of hills, wdiere it seems to thrive equally well as 

 when exposed to the influx of salt or brackish water. 

 The midribs of the immense leaves form one of the most 

 useful articles in these lands, supplying the place of 

 bamboo, to which for many purposes they are superior. 

 They are twelve or fifteen feet long, and, when very fine, 

 as thick in the lower part as a man's leg. They are very 

 light, consisting entirely of a firm pith covered with a hard 

 thin rind or bark. Entire houses are built of these ; they 

 form admirable roofing-poles for thatch ; split and well- 

 supported, they do for flooring ; and when chosen of equal 

 size, and pegged together side by side to fill up the panels 

 of framed wooden houses, they have a very neat appear- 

 ance, and make better walls and partitions than boards, as 

 they do not shrink, require no paint or varnish, and are 

 not a quarter the expense. When carefully split and 

 shaved smooth they are formed into light boards with pegs 

 of the bark itself, and are the foundation of the leaf- 

 covered boxes of Goram. All the insect-boxes I used in 

 the Moluccas were thus made at Amboyna, and when 



