296 
SAGO. 
stone or piece of wood atop, to keep in the heat. In about 
ten or twelve minutes, the cakes will be sufficiently baked, 
according to their thickness ; and bread thus baked, will keep, 
I am told, several years. I have kept it twelve months, nor 
did vermin affect it in that time. It may not be amis to mix 
a little salt wi< h the flour. 
The sago bread, fresh from the oven, eats just like hot 
rolls. I grew very fond of it, as did both my officers. If 
the baker hits his time, the cakes will be nicely browned on 
each side. If the heat be too great, the corners of the cakes 
will melt into a jelly, which, when kept, becomes hard and 
homey ; and, if eat fresh proves insipid. When properly 
baked, it is in a kind of middle state, between raw and jellied. 
A sago cake, when hard, requires to be soaked in water, be¬ 
fore it be-eaten, it then softens and swells into a curd, like 
biscuit soaked ; but, if eat without soaking (unless fresh from 
the oven) it feels disagreeable, like sand in the mouth. 
No wonder then, if agriculture be neglected in a country, 
where the labour of five men, in felling sago trees, beating 
the flour, and instantly baking the bread, will maintain a 
hundred. I must own my crew would have preferred rice ; 
and when my small stock of rice, which I carried from Ba- 
Jambangan, was near expended, I have heard them grumble, 
and say, nanti maJcctn rod Papua , “we must soon eat 
Papua bread/* But, as I took all opportunies of baking it 
fresh, being almost continually in port, they were very well 
contented. 
The sago bread intended for immediate use, need not be 
kept so long in the oven as what is intended for sea use, 
which may be said to resemble biscuit. 
1 have often reflected how well Dampier, Furnel, Roggewein, 
and may other circumnavigators might have fared, when 
passing this way in distress for provisions, had they known 
where to find the groves of sago trees, with which most 
islands here in low latitudes abound; Morty. near Gilolo 
especially. Fresh bread made of sago flour, and the kima (a 
large shell fish like a cockle) would have been no bad support 
among the Moluccas. The kima is found in abundance, of 
all sizes, at low water, during spring tides, on the reefs of 
coral rocks. From experience, I equal the fresh baked sago 
bread to our wheat-bread ; and the kima stewed, is as good as 
most fish, nor does one tire of it; but it must be stewed some 
time, or it will not be tender. Its roe will sometimes weigh six 
pounds ; the fish altogether, when cleared of the shell, weigh¬ 
ing twenty or thirty pounds. 
