Note 15 — Chapter XXXI
Reading edition
This Borassus Gemuti palm plays a great part in the rural economy of the people in Sarawak. It flourishes in the high upland of the interior, and is very rough and wild-looking. It has a sap obtained from the petals of its flowers, used as sugar by the natives, and out of the liquid, which quickly ferments, is made an intoxicating beverage. Between the trunk and the fronds is a horsehair-like substance, used for cordage in shipping throughout the Malayan Archipelago. Tinder can be obtained from a fine cotton-like substance which the plant also yields. Its strong, stiff spines are made into pens, used by the people who write on paper; and a great many of the primitive tribes of the interior make their arrows from these prickly points. I believe that the pith of the trunk furnishes a kind of sago. The seeds are enveloped by a poisonous juice to which the Dutch people give the name of “hell water.”