OILS AND VEGETABLE FAT, 287 
the trunk, has occasionally been witnessed in Fiji; and 
two interesting instances of it are given in Williams’s 
‘Fiji and the Fijians,’ where one of the trees is described 
with five branches. In Samoa Mr. W. Pritchard saw a 
tree with two heads, regarded with just pride by the 
natives who possessed it, and cut down during a war by 
their enemies. As in other parts of Polynesia, the trunk 
is made into small canoes, or supplies materials for 
building and fencing; stockades of it are impenetrable 
to bullets. ‘The leaves are made into different kinds of 
mats and baskets; yam houses are occasionally thatched 
with them, but these roofs do not last much longer 
than a year. The spathe enclosing the flowers is used 
for torches; the fibres surrounding the nut are made 
into “sinnet,” used for fastenings of all kinds. The 
young flesh is delicious eating, and the “water” con- 
tained in the nuts a refreshing drink, which, as the 
fruit advances, undergoes a gradual change, for all of 
which there are distinctive names. New-comers soon 
fix upon a certain stage most agreeable to their palate, 
and on indicating it to the natives they will readily pick 
it out by knocking with their fingers on the outside of 
either the husked or the unhusked nut, and be guided 
by the sound. This process requires long practice, and 
though I tried hard to learn at least the sound of that 
stage I preferred, I did not succeed in accomplishing it. 
The ripe nuts are grated and used for puddings, or given 
to fowls and pigs. Some persons have a predilection 
for nuts when just in the act of germinating—a taste 
which the Asiatic shares in eating the young palmyras, 
and the African in consuming the seedlings of the 
