Sago is made from the pith of a tree-trunk. This tree—the sago-tree—is a kind of palm, like the date-tree and the cocoanut-tree. It is found in the East Indian Islands, where it gives food to many thousands of people, particularly in the large island of New Guinea, where a great part of the population is almost entirely dependent upon it.

The sago-tree grows in swampy places, either by the sea or in little hollows by the hill-sides. It is thicker than the cocoanut palm, but it does not grow quite so tall, being about thirty feet high when full grown, and perhaps twenty inches in diameter. What looks like the root of the sago-tree is really a creeping underground stem, from which a spike of flowers grows up when the tree is about ten or fifteen years old. For some years, while the plant is young, the upright growing stem is covered and completely hidden by very large spiny leaves. These are rather like enormous feathers, of which the centre stems, or midribs, corresponding to the quill of the feather, are from twelve to fifteen feet long, and, in their widest part, as thick as a man's leg. They are used like bamboo by the natives, for building houses, and also for making the roofs and floors of houses that are built of other kinds of wood.

The bases of the midribs widen out and wrap round the stem like a kind of sheath, as almost all leaf-stalks do to some extent. But the sheaths of the sago-tree are so large that, when they are broken off and trimmed, they are like large baskets or troughs—wide in the middle, where they have grasped the stem, and narrow at the ends, where they have joined the tree or are rolled up to form the midrib of the leaf. It is interesting to remember this, because the natives actually use the sheaths as baskets and troughs.

The hollow stem of the growing sago-tree is not more than half an inch in thickness, and it is filled with a light, pithy matter, from which 'sago' is made. This pithy matter varies in colour from a rusty tinge to white, and is rather like the eatable part of a dry apple. Strings of harder, woody fibre run through it like straight veins, and these are of no use for making sago. The pith is best for use when the tree is full grown and just about to flower, and it is then that the natives cut it down.

The tree is cut close to the ground, and, as it lies on the soil, its leaves are cut off, and a portion of the bark is shaved away from the upper side of the trunk so as to lay the pith bare. A native takes a club with a sharp stone in the end of it and beats the sago-pith with it. By this means he breaks up the fibres and the pith into little chips, taking care that they are kept within the trunk. From time to time these chips are loaded into one of the sheaths of the midribs, and carried away to be cleaned. The beater continues to break up the pith until there is nothing left but the hollow tree-trunk.

The sago is separated from the fibres in the pith by the aid of water. The natives take two sheaths of the sago-plant and make them into water-troughs. They set them up upon little frames, one sheath a little higher than the other, with one of its narrow ends projecting like a spout over the lower sheath. A kind of net-like bark or skin, obtained from the cocoanut tree, serves as a strainer or sieve, and is stretched across the upper sheath or trough. They empty the broken pith into the trough above the strainer, and pour water upon it. The soft part of the pith is a kind of starch, which dissolves in the water, and so flows through the sieve and down the spout into the lower trough, but the fibres are held back by the sieve. In order to get all the sago-starch out of the pith, the sago-maker kneads and squeezes the pith until nothing but fibre remains. This is waste, and is thrown away. When the sago-laden water falls into the lower trough it rests awhile, and the sago sinks into the bottom of the sheath as a soft reddish sediment, while the clear water rises to the top, and by and by trickles over the end of the sheath. When this trough is nearly full the sago-starch is taken out, made into rolls, and wrapped in the leaves of the tree.

The sago thus prepared is known as raw sago, and is used by the islanders without being further refined. They boil it in water, and eat it with fruits and salt, or they bake it into cakes in a little clay oven. When these cakes have been well dried they will keep for years; a man can make in a few days sufficient sago-cakes to last him a whole year. It has been calculated that a single tree will produce about eighteen hundred of these cakes.

The sago which we use for our puddings is made by refining the raw sago. When our grandfathers and grandmothers were young, the best raw sago used to be mixed with water and rubbed into small grains before it was sent to Europe. At the present time the sago, after being moistened, is passed through a sieve into a shallow iron pot, placed over a fire, and in this way the round pearly sago which we use is produced. As this sago is half-baked in this operation, it will keep for a very long time.

The Malays call the sago-tree the rumbiya and its pith sagu from which word we get our name sago. We have here an instance of a Malay word which is in daily use in the English language.