Page:The lives of celebrated travellers (Volume 1).djvu/69

 on the way to Java the less, or Sumatra. This island, which he describes as two thousand miles in circumference, was divided into eight kingdoms, six of which he visited and curiously examined. Some portion of the inhabitants had been converted to Mohammedanism; but numerous tribes still roamed in a savage state among the mountains, feeding upon human flesh and every unclean animal, and worshipping as a god the first object which met their eyes in the morning. Among one of these wild races a very extraordinary practice prevailed: whenever any individual was stricken with sickness, his relations immediately inquired of the priests or magicians whether he would recover or not; and if answered in the negative, the patient was instantly strangled, cut in pieces, and devoured, even to the very marrow of the bones. This, they alleged, was to prevent the generation of worms in any portion of the body, which, by gnawing and defacing it, would torture the soul of the dead. The bones were carefully concealed in the caves of the mountains. Strangers, from the same humane motive, were eaten in an equally friendly way.

Here were numerous rhinoceroses, camphor, which sold for its weight in gold, and lofty trees, ten or twelve feet in circumference, from the pith of which a kind of meal was made. This pith, having been broken into pieces, was cast into vessels filled with water, where the light innutritious parts floated upon the top, while the finer and more solid descended to the bottom. The former was skimmed off and thrown away, but the latter, in taste not unlike barley-bread, was wrought into a kind of paste, and eaten. This was the sago, the first specimen of which ever seen in Europe was brought to Venice by Marco Polo. The wood of the tree, which was heavy and sunk in water like iron, was used in making spears.

From Sumatra they sailed to the Nicobar and