Page:Twenty Thousand Verne Frith 1876.pdf/212

nised as the “abrou” of the Malays; and some excellent yams.

We were overloaded when we reached the launch; nevertheless, Ned still found the supply insufficient. But fortune favoured him. As we were embarking he caught sight of some trees which appeared to be a species of palm. These trees are justly reckoned amongst the most useful of the Malayan products. They were sago trees. They grew naturally without culture, and were reproduced, like the mulberry, by their shoots and seeds.

Ned Land knew how to treat them. He seized a hatchet, and, working with great determination, he soon felled two or three sago trees, whose maturity he recognised by the white dust powdering their leaves.

I watched him from a naturalist’s point of view, rather than as a hungry man. He began by raising a strip of bark, about an inch thick, from each tree, which covered a network of long fibres, forming inextricable knots, which were cemented together by a sort of gummy farine. This was the sago which forms a principal article of food amongst the Malays. Ned Land, for the moment, only cut the trees in pieces as for firewood, intending to extract the sago later by separating it from the fibrous ligatures, evaporating the water by the sun’s heat, and leaving it to harden in the moulds.

At length, about 5 p.m., laden with our treasures, we quitted the island, and half an hour later climbed on board the Nautilus. No one was to be seen. The vessel appeared deserted. We embarked our provisions. I descended to my room, where I found my supper prepared. I ate it and went to bed.