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THE LAST OF THE WRECK 15S |
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of the berries as we could carry, for I told Fritz I believed I could make candles from them.
Soon after we came upon some trees like the wild fig-tree. Their height was from forty to sixty feet, and a kind of gum oozed from the trunks. Fritz collected some of this, and as we walked he pulled it about like elastic or gutta-percha. Seeing this it dawned upon me what the gum really was, namely, indiarubber which might by a little trouble be made very useful to us.
Our next discovery was of a tree called the sago palm. One of these had been blown down by the wind, so that I was able to examine it thoroughly. I found that the trunk contained some mealy stuff, therefore with my hatchet I cut it open longways and cleared it of the contents ; and I found on tasting it was exactly like the sago I had often eaten. Thus we had made in a short time three very remarkable and useful discoveries.
We now began to consider how much further we would go ; the thick bushes of bamboo, through which it was impossible to pass, seemed to put an end to our exploration, so we turned to the left towards Cape Disappointment, where were the plantations of sugar-canes. We cut a large bundle of the canes, which we threw across the donkey's |
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