SAGO. 
SOI 
wear and tear of the boat, a sum quite adequate for this pur¬ 
pose-independent of the perference which people bred up to 
a sea faring life, generally give to it over all other modes of 
more profitable subsistence, and setting aside the chance of 
gain which they have on their cargoes imported into the sago 
districts. 
It is curious to contemplate the natural prices fixed by 
the two classes who cultivate sago. From what we have before 
stated^ it will appear that the rude inhabitants of Appong, 
by a calculation of their wages of labour and profits of stock, 
on a reduced scale compared with their more civilized and 
wealthier neighbours, the Malays of Mandha and other places, 
have contented themselves with an average rate, about 30 per 
cent less, evidently arising from their poverty and barbarous 
condition. 
We have no data from which to compute the even proba¬ 
ble time at which the sago tree was introduced Fbto our 
vicinity ; connections have existed for ages amongst the people 
of this part of the Archipelago, and the Eastern Islanders, 
which though not perhaps purely commercial, were yet suffi¬ 
cient to have brought this about, affording at once as it does, 
a livelihood and subsistence, without the possibility of a scar¬ 
city, requiring little labour beyond planting the seed, and of 
all others most easy of attainment and agreeable to the scale 
of Malayan industry. 
The most satisfactory conclus'on we can arrive at in the 
above speculation is, that when or how introduced it matters 
little, since it will be evident that of late years only it has ac¬ 
quired any consequence as an article of commerce. It has lain 
.dormant from various causes, among the most evident of which 
appear to havebeenthewantofpurchasers from the grower, even 
Malays themselves of other parts being formerly afraid to visit 
them,—the attendant difficulty of getting it to a market, Malacca 
being the only one except Penang, which previous to the es¬ 
tablishment of Singapore was at too great a distance, besides 
the risk of meeting Pirates on the voyage,—and again, the na¬ 
turally slothful disposition of the cultivators which operated 
effectually in keeping down the produce, until of late years, 
when Singapore, in a great measure removing the above 
obstacles, has created a stimulus to exertion, more probably 
on the steady increase than the decline, great as the demand 
now is. 
