THE SAGO PALM. 



267 



ment. In size, colour, and shape they resemble a parsnip, and look 

 like a cold potato. In its fresh state it will keep good for a couple 

 of months, and when well dried in the sun, for a whole year. 



In this state they are called odials. When reduced to flour or 

 meal, the favourite cool or gruel is made of it. 



Punatoo. — The pulp of the fruit is preserved for use in the follow- 

 ing manner : — ^The ripe fruits are put into baskets containing water, 

 and are then squeezed by the hand till the pulp forms a jelly. 

 Layers of this jelly are spread on palmyra leaf mats to dry on stages. 

 Layer after layer is deposited to the number of about fifteen. These 

 are left in the sun about a fortnight or three weeks, only covered at 

 night, and protected from the dew and rain. The best sort is called 

 Pimatos, and the tough withery kind made from the remaining fruits 

 gathered at the end of the season, which is much in favour. Tot 

 Punatoo. Punatoo is sold by the mat at 3s. to 6s. each, and is the 

 chief food of the islanders of Ceylon, and of the poorer classes of 

 the peninsula, for several months of the year. 



The Sago Palm [Sagus Bumphii, Willd., Metroxylon Sagus, Keen.) 

 is a tree from which the inhabitants of the eastern portion of the Indian 

 Archipelago derive the farinaceous nutriment which other nations of 

 the world obtain from cereal grains, or farinaceous roots. Marco 

 Polo (a.d. 1475) says of this tree : — " And I will tell you another 

 great marvel ; they have a kind of trees that produce flour, and ex- 

 cellent flour it is for food. These trees are very tall and thick, but 

 have a very thin bark, and inside this bark they are crammed with 

 flour." Friar Odoricus, of the Minorites, who visited the Indian 

 Archipelago about 1518 a.d., describes the process by which sago 

 meal was obtained, thus : — " Meal is produced out of the said trees 

 after this manner. They be mighty huge trees, and when they are 

 cut with an axe by the ground, there cometh out of the stock a certain 

 liquor like unto gum, which they take and put into bags made of 

 leaves, laying them for fifteen days together abroad in the sun, and 

 at the end of those fifteen days, when the said liquor is thoroughly 

 parched, it becometh meal. Then they steep it first in sea water, 

 washing it afterwards with fresh water, and so it is made very good 

 and savoury paste, whereof they make either meat or bread, as they 

 think good." 



After the Nipa, the Sago is in stature the smallest of the palm 

 tribe, its extreme height seldom exceeding thirty feet, but it is the 

 thickest, except the Gomuti (Arenga sacchariferd), and a full-grown 

 tree can with difficulty be clasped between both arms. In the early 

 period of its growth, and before the stem has formed, this palm 

 appears altogether like a cluster of so many shoots. Until the stem 

 has attained the height of five or six feet, it is covered with sharp 

 spines, which afford it protection from the attacks of the wild hog, or 

 other wild beasts. When, from the strength and maturity of the 

 wood, this protection is no longer necessary, the spines drop off. 

 Before the tree has attained its full growth, and previous to the for- 

 mation of the fruit, the stem consists of a thin hard wall, about two 

 inches thick, and of an enormous volume of a spongy, medullary 



