The Water Charged With Sago
Starch Passes On To A Trough, With A Depression In The Centre, Where The
Sediment
Is deposited, the surplus water trickling off by a shallow outlet.
When the trough is nearly full, the mass of
Starch, which has a slight
reddish tinge, is made into cylinders of about thirty pounds' weight, and
neatly covered with sago leaves, and in this state is sold as raw sago.
Boiled with water this forms a thick glutinous mass, with a rather
astringent taste, and is eaten with salt, limes, and chilies. Sago-bread is
made in large quantities, by baking it into cakes in a small clay oven
containing six or eight slits side by side, each about three-quarters of an
inch wide, and six or eight inches square. The raw sago is broken up, dried
in the sun, powdered, and finely sifted. The oven is heated over a clear
fire of embers, and is lightly filled with the sago powder. The openings
are then covered with a flat piece of sago bark, and in about five minutes
the cakes are turned out sufficiently baked. The hot cakes are very nice
with butter, and when made with the addition of a little sugar and grated
cocoa-nut are quite a delicacy. They are soft, and something like
corn-flour cakes, but have a slight characteristic flavour which is lost in
the refined sago we use in this country. When not wanted for immediate use,
they are dried for several days in the sun, and tied up in bundles of
twenty. They will then keep for years; they are very hard, and very rough
and dry...." (A. R. Wallace's Malay Archipelago, 1869, II. pp. 118-121.)
- H.C.]
NOTE 5. - In quitting the subject of these Sumatran Kingdoms it may appear
to some readers that our explanations compress them too much, especially
as Polo seems to allow only two kingdoms for the rest of the Island. In
this he was doubtless wrong, and we may the less scruple to say so as he
had not visited that other portion of the Island. We may note that in
the space to which we assign the six kingdoms which Polo visited, De
Barros assigns twelve, viz.: Bara (corresponding generally to Ferlec),
Pacem (Basma), Pirada, Lide, Pedir, Biar, Achin, Lambri, Daya,
Mancopa, Quinchel, Barros (Fansur). (Dec. III. v. 1.)
[Regarding these Sumatrian kingdoms, Mr. Thomson (Proc.R.G.S. XX. p.
223) writes that Malaiur "is no other than Singapore ... the ancient
capital of the Malays or Malaiurs of old voyagers, existent in the times
of Marco Polo [who] mentions no kingdom or city in Java Minor till he
arrives at the kingdom of Felech or Perlak. And this is just as might be
expected, as the channel in the Straits of Malacca leads on the
north-eastern side out of sight of Sumatra; and the course, after clearing
the shoals near Selangore, being direct towards Diamond Point, near which
... the tower of Perlak is situated. Thus we see that the Venetian
traveller describes the first city or kingdom in the great island that he
arrived at.... [After Basman and Samara] Polo mentions Dragoian ... from
the context, and following Marco Polo's course, we would place it west from
his last city or Kingdom Samara; and we make no doubt, if the name is not
much corrupted, it may yet be identified in one of the villages of the
coast at this present time.... By the Malay annalist, Lambri was west of
Samara; consecutively it was also westerly from Samara by Marco Polo's
enumeration. Fanfur ... is the last kingdom named by Marco Polo [coming
from the east], and the first by the Malay annalist [coming from the west];
and as it is known to modern geographers, this corroboration doubly settles
the identity and position of all. Thus all the six cities or kingdoms
mentioned by Marco Polo were situated on the north coast of Sumatra, now
commonly known as the Pedir coast." I have given the conclusion arrived at
by Mr. J.T. Thomson in his paper, Marco Polo's Six Kingdoms or Cities in
Java Minor, identified in translations from the ancient Malay Annals,
which appeared in the Proc.R.G.S. XX. pp. 215-224, after the second
edition of this Book was published and Sir H. Yule added the following note
(Proc., l.c., p. 224): "Mr. Thomson, as he mentions, has not seen my
edition of Marco Polo, nor, apparently, a paper on the subject of these
kingdoms by the late Mr. J.R. Logan, in his Journal of the Indian
Archipelago, to which reference is made in the notes to Marco Polo. In
the said paper and notes the quotations and conclusions of Mr. Thomson have
been anticipated; and Fansur also, which he leaves undetermined,
identified." - H.C.]
[1] I formerly supposed Al-Ramni, the oldest Arabic name of
Sumatra, to be a corruption of Lambri; but this is more probably of
Hindu origin. One of the Dvipas of the ocean mentioned in the
Puranas is called Ramaniyaka, "delightfulness." (Williams's
Skt. Dict.)
[2] Van der Tuuk says positively, I find: "Fantsur was the ancient name of
Barus." (J.R.A.S. n.s. II. 232.) [Professor Schlegel writes
also (Geog. Notes, XVI. p. 9): "At all events, Fansur or
Pantsur can be naught but Baros." - H.C.]
[3] Liquidambar Altingiana.
[4] The Californian and Australian giants of 400 feet were not then known.
CHAPTER XII.
CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF NECUVERAN.
When you leave the Island of Java (the less) and the kingdom of Lambri,
you sail north about 150 miles, and then you come to two Islands, one of
which is called NECUVERAN. In this Island they have no king nor chief, but
live like beasts. And I tell you they go all naked, both men and women,
and do not use the slightest covering of any kind. They are Idolaters.
Their woods are all of noble and valuable kinds of trees; such as Red
Sanders and Indian-nut and Cloves and Brazil and sundry other good spices.
[NOTE 1]
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