CHAPTER 7.

VEGETABLE PRODUCTIONS OF THE ISLAND CONSIDERED AS ARTICLES OF COMMERCE.

PEPPER.

CULTIVATION OF PEPPER.

CAMPHOR.

BENZOIN.

CASSIA, ETC.

(PLATE 1. THE PEPPER-PLANT, PIPER NIGRUM.

E.W. Marsden delt. Engraved by J. Swaine, Queen Street, Golden Square.

Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)

PEPPER.

OF those productions of Sumatra, which are regarded as articles of

commerce, the most important and most abundant is pepper. This is the

object of the East India Company's trade thither, and this alone it keeps

in its own hands; its servants, and merchants under its protection, being

free to deal in every other commodity.

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TRADE.

Many of the princes or chiefs in different parts of the island having

invited the English to form settlements in their respective districts,

factories were accordingly established, and a permanency and regularity

thereby given to the trade, which was very uncertain whilst it depended

upon the success of occasional voyages to the coast; disappointments

ensuing not only from failure of adequate quantities of pepper to furnish

cargoes when required, but also from the caprices and chicanery of the

chiefs with whom the disposal of it lay, the motives of whose conduct

could not be understood by those who were unacquainted with the language

and manners of the people. These inconveniencies were obviated when the

agents of the Company were enabled, by their residence on the spot, to

obtain an influence in the country, to inspect the state of the

plantations, secure the collection of the produce, and make an estimate

of the tonnage necessary for its conveyance to Europe.

In order to bind the chiefs to the observance of their original promises

and professions, and to establish a plausible and legal claim, in

opposition to the attempts of rival European powers to interfere in the

trade of the same country, written contracts, attended with much form and

solemnity, were entered into with the former; by which they engaged to

oblige all their dependants to cultivate pepper, and to secure to us the

exclusive purchase of it; in return for which they were to be protected

from their enemies, supported in the rights of sovereignty, and to be

paid a certain allowance or custom on the produce of their respective

territories.

PRICE.

The price for many years paid to the cultivators for their produce was

ten Spanish dollars or fifty shillings per bahar of five hundredweight or

five hundred and sixty pounds. About the year 1780, with a view to their

encouragement and the increase of investment, as it is termed, the sum

was augmented to fifteen dollars. To this cost is to be added the custom

above mentioned, varying in different districts according to specific

agreements, but amounting in general to one dollar and a half, or two

dollars on each bahar, which is distributed amongst the chiefs at an

annual entertainment; and presents are made at the same time to planters

who have distinguished themselves by their industry. This low price, at

which the natives submit to cultivate the plantations, affording to each

man an income of not more than from eight to twelve dollars yearly, and

the undisturbed monopoly we have so long possessed of the trade, from

near Indrapura northward to Flat Point southward, are doubtless in a

principal degree to be attributed to the peculiar manner in which this

part of the island is shut up, by the surfs which prevail along the

south-west coast, from communication with strangers, whose competition

would naturally produce the effect of enhancing the price of the

commodity. The general want of anchorage too, for so many leagues to the

northward of the Straits of Sunda, has in all ages deterred the Chinese

and other eastern merchants from attempting to establish an intercourse

that must be attended with imminent risk to unskilful navigators; indeed

I understand it to be a tradition among the natives who border on the

sea-coast that it is not many hundred years since these parts began to be

inhabited, and they speak of their descent as derived from the more

inland country. Thus it appears that those natural obstructions, which we

are used to lament as the greatest detriment to our trade, are in fact

advantages to which it in a great measure owes its existence. In the

northern countries of the island, where the people are numerous and their

ports good, they are found to be more independent also, and refuse to

cultivate plantations upon any other terms than those on which they can

deal with private traders.

CULTIVATION OF PEPPER.

In the cultivation of pepper (Piper nigrum, L.)* the first circumstance

that claims attention, and on which the success materially depends, is

the choice of a proper site for the plantation. A preference is usually

given to level ground lying along the banks of rivers or rivulets,

provided they are not so low as to be inundated, both on account of the

vegetable mould commonly found there, and the convenience of

water-carriage for the produce. Declivities, unless very gentle, are to

be avoided, because the soil loosened by culture is liable in such

situations to be washed away by heavy rains. When these plains however

are naked, or covered with long grass only, they will not be found to

answer without the assistance of the plough and of manure, their

fertility being exhausted by exposure to the sun. How far the returns in

general might be increased by the introduction of these improvements in

agriculture I cannot take upon me to determine; but I fear that, from the

natural indolence of the natives, and their want of zeal in the business

of pepper-planting, occasioned by the smallness of the advantage it

yields to them, they will never be prevailed upon to take more pains than

they now do. The planters therefore, depending more upon the natural

qualities of the soil than on any advantage it might receive from their

cultivation, find none to suit their purpose better than those spots

which, having been covered with old woods and long fertilized by decaying

foliage and trunks, have recently been cleared for ladangs or

padi-fields, in the manner already described; where it was also observed

that, being allured by the certainty of abundant produce from a virgin

soil, and having land for the most part at will, they renew their toil

annually, and desert the ground so laboriously prepared after occupying

it for one, or at the furthest for two, seasons. Such are the most usual

situations chosen for the pepper plantations (kabun) or gardens, as they

are termed; but, independently of the culture of rice, land is very

frequently cleared for the pepper in the first instance by felling and

burning the trees.

(*Footnote. See Remarks on the Species of Pepper (and on its Cultivation)

at Prince of Wales Island, by Dr. William Hunter, in the Asiatic

Researches Volume 9 page 383.)

FORMATION OF THE GARDEN.

The ground is then marked out in form of a regular square or oblong, with

intersections throughout at the distance of six feet (being equal to five

cubits of the measure of the country), the intended interval between the

plants, of which there are commonly either one thousand or five hundred

in each garden; the former number being required from those who are heads

of families (their wives and children assisting them in their work), and

the latter from single men. Industrious or opulent persons sometimes have

gardens of two or three thousand vines. A border twelve feet in width,

within which limit no tree is suffered to grow, surrounds each garden,

and it is commonly separated from others by a row of shrubs or irregular

hedge. Where the nature of the country admits of it the whole or greater

part of the gardens of a dusun or village lie adjacent to each other,

both for the convenience of mutual assistance in labour and mutual

protection from wild beasts; single gardens being often abandoned from

apprehension of their ravages, and where the owner has been killed in

such a situation none will venture to replace him.

VEGETATING PROPS.

After lining out the ground and marking the intersections by slight

stakes the next business is to plant the trees that are to become props

to the pepper, as the Romans planted elms, and the modern Italians more

commonly plant poplars and mulberries, for their grape-vines. These are

cuttings of the chungkariang (Erythrina corallodendron), usually called

chinkareens, put into the ground about a span deep, sufficiently early to

allow time for a shoot to be strong enough to support the young

pepper-plant when it comes to twine about it. The cuttings are commonly

two feet in length, but sometimes a preference is given to the length of

six feet, and the vine is then planted as soon as the chinkareen has

taken root: but the principal objections to this method are that in such

state they are very liable to fail and require renewal, to the prejudice

of the garden; and that their shoots are not so vigorous as those of the

short cuttings, frequently growing crooked, or in a lateral instead of a

perpendicular direction. The circumstances which render the chinkareen

particularly proper for this use are its readiness and quickness of

growth, even after the cuttings have been kept some time in bundles,* if

put into the ground with the first rains; and the little thorns with

which it is armed enabling the vine to take a firmer hold. They are

distinguished into two sorts, the white and red, not from the colour of

the flowers (as might be supposed) for both are red, but from the tender

shoots of the one being whitish and of the other being of a reddish hue.

The bark of the former is of a pale ash colour, of the latter brown; the

former is sweet, and the food of elephants, for which reason it is not

much used in parts frequented by those animals; the latter is bitter and

unpalatable to them; but they are not deterred by the short prickles

which are common to the branches of both sorts.

(*Footnote. It is a common and useful practice to place these bundles of

cuttings in water about two inches deep and afterwards to reject such of

them as in that state do not show signs of vegetation.)

Trial has frequently been made of other trees, and particularly of the

bangkudu or mangkudu (Morinda citrifolia), but none have been found to

answer so well for these vegetating props. It has been doubted indeed

whether the growth and produce of the pepper-vine are not considerably

injured by the chinkareen, which may rob it of its proper nourishment by

exhausting the earth; and on this principle, in other of the eastern

islands (Borneo, for instance), the vine is supported by poles in the

manner of hops in England. Yet it is by no means clear to me that the

Sumatran method is so disadvantageous in the comparison as it may seem;

for, as the pepper-plant lasts many years, whilst the poles, exposed to

sun and rain, and loaded with a heavy weight, cannot be supposed to

continue sound above two seasons, there must be a frequent renewal,

which, notwithstanding the utmost care, must lacerate and often destroy

the vines. It is probable also that the shelter from the violence of the

sun's rays afforded by the branches of the vegetating prop, and which,

during the dry monsoon, is of the utmost consequence, may counterbalance

the injury occasioned by their roots; not to insist on the opinion of a

celebrated writer that trees, acting as siphons, derive from the air and

transmit to the earth as much of the principle of vegetation as is

expended in their nourishment.

When the most promising shoot of the chinkareen reserved for rearing has

attained the height of twelve to fifteen feet (which latter it is not to

exceed), or in the second year of its growth, it must be headed or

topped; and the branches that then extend themselves laterally, from the

upper part only, so long as their shade is required, are afterwards

lopped annually at the commencement of the rainy season (about November),

leaving little more than the stem; from whence they again shoot out to

afford their protection during the dry weather. By this operation also

the damage to the plant that would ensue from the droppings of rain from

the leaves is avoided.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PEPPER-VINE.

The pepper-vine is, in its own climate, a hardy plant, growing readily

from cuttings or layers, rising in several knotted stems, twining round

any neighbouring support, and adhering to it by fibres that shoot from

every joint at intervals of six to ten inches, and from which it probably

derives a share of its nourishment. If suffered to run along the ground

these fibres would become roots; but in this case (like the ivy) it would

never exhibit any appearance of fructification, the prop being necessary

for encouraging it to throw out its bearing shoots. It climbs to the

height of twenty or twenty-five feet, but thrives best when restrained to

twelve or fifteen, as in the former case the lower part of the vine bears

neither leaves nor fruit, whilst in the latter it produces both from

within a foot of the ground. The stalk soon becomes ligneous, and in time

acquires considerable thickness. The leaves are of a deep green and

glossy surface, heart-shaped, pointed, not pungent to the taste, and have

but little smell. The branches are short and brittle, not projecting

above two feet from the stem, and separating readily at the joints. The

blossom is small and white, the fruit round, green when young and

full­grown, and turning to a bright red when ripe and in perfection. It

grows abundantly from all the branches in long small clusters of twenty

to fifty grains, somewhat resembling bunches of currants, but with this

difference, that every grain adheres to the common stalk, which occasions

the cluster of pepper to be more compact, and it is also less pliant.

MODES OF PROPAGATING IT.

The usual mode of propagating the pepper is by cuttings, a foot or two in

length, of the horizontal shoots that run along the ground from the foot

of the old vines (called lado sulur), and one or two of these are planted

within a few inches of the young chinkareen at the same time with it if

of the long kind, or six months after if of the short kind, as before

described. Some indeed prefer an interval of twelve months; as in good

soil the luxuriancy of the vine will often overpower and bear down the

prop, if it has not first acquired competent strength. In such soil the

vine rises two or three feet in the course of the first year, and four or

five more in the second, by which time, or between the second and third

year of its growth, it begins to show its blossom (be-gagang), if in fact

it can be called such, being nothing more than the germ of the future

bunch of fruit, of a light straw colour, darkening to green as the fruit

forms. These germs or blossoms are liable to fall untimely (gugur) in

very dry weather, or to be shaken off in high winds (although from this

accident the gardens are in general well sheltered by the surrounding

woods), when, after the fairest promise, the crop fails.

TURNING DOWN THE VINES.

In the rainy weather that succeeds the first appearance of the fruit the

whole vine is loosened from the chinkareen and turned down again into the

earth, a hole being dug to receive it, in which it is laid circularly or

coiled, leaving only the extremity above ground, at the foot of the

chinkareen, which it now reascends with redoubled vigour, attaining in

the following season the height of eight or ten feet, and bearing a full

crop of fruit. There is said to be a great nicety in hitting the exact

time proper for this operation of turning down; for if it be done too

soon, the vines have been known not to bear till the third year, like

fresh plants; and on the other hand the produce is ultimately retarded

when they omit to turn them down until after the first fruit has been

gathered; to which avarice of present, at the expense of future

advantage, sometimes inclines the owners. It is not very material how

many stems the vine may have in its first growth, but now one only, if

strong, or two at the most, should be suffered to rise and cling to the

prop: more would be superfluous and only weaken the whole. The

supernumerary shoots however are usefully employed, being either

conducted through narrow trenches to adjacent chinkareens whose vines

have failed, or taken off at the root and transplanted to others more

distant, where, coiled round and buried as the former, they rise with the

same vigour, and the garden is completed of uniform growth, although many

of its original vines have not succeeded. With these offsets or layers

(called anggor and tettas) new gardens may be at once formed; the

necessary chinkareens being previously planted, and of sufficient growth

to receive them.

This practice of turning down the vines, which appears singular but

certainly contributes to the duration as well as strength of the plants,

may yet amount to nothing more than a substitute for transplantation. Our

people observing that vegetables often fail to thrive when permitted to

grow up in the same beds where they were first set or sown, find it

advantageous to remove them, at a certain period of their growth, to

fresh situations. The Sumatrans observing the same failure have had

recourse to an expedient nearly similar in its principle but effected in

a different and perhaps more judicious mode.

In order to lighten the labour of the cultivator, who has also the

indispensable task of raising grain for himself and his family, it is a

common practice, and not attended with any detriment to the gardens, to

sow padi in the ground in which the chinkareens have been planted, and

when this has become about six inches high, to plant the cuttings of the

vines, suffering the shoots to creep along the ground until the crop has

been taken off, when they are trained to the chinkareens, the shade of

the corn being thought favourable to the young plants.

PROGRESS OF BEARING.

The vines, as has been observed, generally begin to bear in the course of

the third year from the time of planting, but the produce is retarded for

one or two seasons by the process just described; after which it

increases annually for three years, when the garden (about the seventh or

eighth year) is esteemed in its prime, or at its utmost produce; which

state it maintains, according to the quality of the soil, from one to

four years, when it gradually declines for about the same period until it

is no longer worth the labour of keeping it in order. From some, in good

ground, fruit has been gathered at the age of twenty years; but such

instances are uncommon. On the first appearance of decline it should be

renewed, as it is termed; but, to speak more properly, another garden

should be planted to succeed it, which will begin to bear before the old

one ceases.

MODE OF PRUNING.

The vine having acquired its full growth, and being limited by the height

of the chinkareen, sometimes grows bushy and overhangs at top, which,

being prejudicial to the lower parts, must be corrected by pruning or

thinning the top branches, and this is done commonly by hand, as they

break readily at every joint. Suckers too, or superfluous side­shoots

(charang), which spring luxuriantly, are to be plucked away. The ground

of the garden must be kept perfectly clear of weeds, shrubs, and whatever

might injure or tend to choke the plants. During the hot months of June,

July, and August the finer kinds of grass may be permitted to cover the

ground, as it contributes to mitigate the effects of the sun's power, and

preserves for a longer time the dews, which at that season fall

copiously; but the rank species, called lalang, being particularly

difficult to eradicate, should not be suffered to fix itself, if it can

be avoided. As the vines increase in size and strength less attention to

the ground is required, and especially as their shade tends to check the

growth of weeds. In lopping the branches of the chinkareens preparatory

to the rains, some dexterity is required that they may fall clear of the

vine, and the business is performed with a sharp prang or bill that

generally separates at one stroke the light pithy substance of the bough.

For this purpose, as well as that of gathering the fruit, light

triangular ladders made of bamboo are employed.

TIME OF GATHERING.

As soon as any of the berries or corns redden, the bunch is reckoned fit

for gathering, the remainder being then generally full-grown, although

green; nor would it answer to wait for the whole to change colour, as the

most mature would drop off.

MODE OF DRYING AND CLEANSING.

It is collected in small baskets slung over the shoulder, and with the

assistance of the women and children conveyed to a smooth level spot of

clean hard ground near the garden or the village, where it is spread,

sometimes upon mats, to dry in the sun, but exposed at the same time to

the vicissitudes of the weather, which are not much regarded nor thought

to injure it. In this situation it becomes black and shrivelled, as we

see it in Europe, and as it dries is hand-rubbed occasionally to separate

the grains from the stalk. It is then winnowed in large round shallow

sieves called nyiru, and put in large vessels made of bark (kulitkayu)

under their houses until the whole of the crop is gathered, or a

sufficient quantity for carrying (usually by water) to the European

factory or gadong at the mouth of the river. That which has been gathered

at the properest stage of maturity will shrivel the least; but, if

plucked too soon, it will in a short time, by removal from place to

place, become mere dust. Of this defect trial may be made by the hand;

but as light pepper may have been mixed with the sound it becomes

necessary that the whole should be garbled at the scale by machines

constructed for the purpose. Pepper that has fallen to the ground

overripe and been gathered from thence will be known by being stripped of

its outer coat, and in that state is an inferior kind of white pepper.

WHITE PEPPER.

This was for centuries supposed in Europe to be the produce of a

different plant, and to possess qualities superior to those of the common

black pepper; and accordingly it sold at a considerably higher price. But

it has lost in some measure that advantage since it has been known that

the secret depended merely upon the art of blanching the grains of the

other sort, by depriving it of the exterior pellicle. For this purpose

the ripest red grains are picked out and put in baskets to steep, either

in running water (which is preferred), in pits dug for the occasion near

the banks of rivers, or in stagnant pools. Sometimes it is only buried in

the ground. In any of these situations it swells, and in the course of a

week or ten days bursts its tegument, from which it is afterwards

carefully separated by drying in the sun, rubbing between the hands, and

winnowing. It has been much disputed, and is still undetermined, to which

sort the preference ought to be given. The white pepper has this obvious

recommendation, that it can be made of no other than the best and

soundest grains, taken at their most perfect stage of maturity: but on

the other hand it is argued that, by being suffered to remain the

necessary time in water, its strength must be considerably diminished;

and that the outer husk, which is lost by the process, has a peculiar

flavour distinct from that of the heart, and though not so pungent, more

aromatic. For the white pepper the planter receives the fourth part of a

dollar, or fifteen pence, per bamboo or gallon measure, equal to about

six pounds weight. At the sales in England the prices are at this time in

the proportion of seventeen to ten or eleven, and the quantity imported

has for some years been inconsiderable.

APPEARANCE OF THE GARDENS.

The gardens being planted in even rows, running parallel, and at right

angles with each other, their symmetrical appearance is very beautiful,

and rendered more striking by the contrast they exhibit to the wild

scenes of nature which surround them. In highly cultivated countries such

as England, where landed property is all lined out and bounded and

intersected with walls and hedges, we endeavour to give our gardens and

pleasure-grounds the charm of variety and novelty by imitating the

wildness of nature, in studied irregularities. Winding walks, hanging

woods, craggy rocks, falls of water, are all looked upon as improvements;

and the stately avenues, the canals, and rectangular lawns of our

ancestors, which afforded the beauty of contrast in ruder times are now

exploded. This difference of taste is not merely the effect of caprice,

nor entirely of refinement, but results from the change of circumstances.

A man who should attempt to exhibit in Sumatra the modern or irregular

style of laying out grounds would attract but little attention, as the

unimproved scenes adjoining on every side would probably eclipse his

labours. Could he, on the contrary, produce, amidst its magnificent

wilds, one of those antiquated parterres, with its canals and fountains,

whose precision he has learned to despise, his work would create

admiration and delight. A pepper-garden cultivated in England would not

in point of external appearance be considered as an object of

extraordinary beauty, and would be particularly found fault with for its

uniformity; yet in Sumatra I never entered one, after travelling many

miles, as is usually the case, through the woods, that I did not find

myself affected with a strong sensation of pleasure. Perhaps the simple

view of human industry, so scantily presented in that island, might

contribute to this pleasure, by awakening those social feelings that

nature has inspired us with, and which make our breasts glow on the

perception of whatever indicates the prosperity and happiness of our

fellow-creatures.

SURVEYS.

Once in every year a survey of all the pepper-plantations is taken by the

Company's European servants resident at the various settlements, in the

neighbourhood of which that article is cultivated. The number of vines in

each particular garden is counted; accurate observation is made of its

state and condition; orders are given where necessary for further care,

for completion of stipulated quantity, renewals, changes of situation for

better soil; and rewards and punishments are distributed to the planters

as they appear, from the degree of their industry or remissness,

deserving of either. Minutes of all these are entered in the survey-book,

which, beside giving present information to the chief, and to the

governor and council, to whom a copy is transmitted, serves as a guide

and check for the survey of the succeeding year. An abstract of the form

of the book is as follows. It is divided into sundry columns, containing

the name of the village; the names of the planters; the number of

chinkareens planted; the number of vines just planted; of young vines,

not in a bearing state, three classes or years; of young vines in a

bearing state, three classes; of vines in prime; of those on decline; of

those that are old, but still productive; the total number; and lastly

the quantity of pepper received during the year. A space is left for

occasional remarks, and at the conclusion is subjoined a comparison of

the totals of each column, for the whole district or residency, with

those of the preceding year. This business the reader will perceive to be

attended with considerable trouble, exclusive of the actual fatigue of

the surveys, which from the nature of the country must necessarily be

performed on foot, in a climate not very favourable to such excursions.

The journeys in few places can be performed in less than a month, and

often require a much longer time.

The arrival of the Company's Resident at each dusun is considered as a

period of festivity. The chief, together with the principal inhabitants,

entertain him and his attendants with rustic hospitality, and when he

retires to rest, his slumbers are soothed, or interrupted, by the songs

of young females, who never fail to pay this compliment to the respected

guest; and receive in return some trifling ornamental and useful presents

(such as looking-glasses, fans, and needles) at his departure.

SUCCESSION OF GARDENS.

The inhabitants, by the original contracts of the headmen with the

Company, are obliged to plant a certain number of vines; each family one

thousand, and each young unmarried man five hundred; and, in order to

keep up the succession of produce, so soon as their gardens attain to

their prime state, they are ordered to prepare others, that they may

begin to bear as the old ones fall off; but as this can seldom be

enforced till the decline becomes evident, and as young gardens are

liable to various accidents which older ones are exempt from, the

succession is rendered incomplete, and the consequence is that the annual

produce of each district fluctuates, and is greater or less in the

proportion of the quantity of bearing vines to the whole number. To enter

minutely into the detail of this business will not afford much

information or entertainment to the generality of readers, who will

however be surprised to hear that pepper-planting, though scarcely an

art, so little skill appears to be employed in its cultivation, has

nevertheless been rendered an abstruse science by the investigations

which able men have bestowed upon the subject. These took their rise from

censures conveyed for supposed mismanagement, when the investment, or

annual provision of pepper, decreased in comparison with preceding years,

and which was not satisfactorily accounted for by unfavourable seasons.

To obviate such charges it became necessary for those who superintended

the business to pay attention to and explain the efficient causes which

unavoidably occasioned this fluctuation, and to establish general

principles of calculation by which to determine at any time the probable

future produce of the different residencies. These will depend upon a

knowledge of the medium produce of a determinate number of vines, and the

medium number to which this produce is to be applied; both of which are

to be ascertained only from a comprehensive view of the subject, and a

nice discrimination. Nothing general can be determined from detached

instances. It is not the produce of one particular plantation in one

particular stage of bearing and in one particular season, but the mean

produce of all the various classes of bearing vines collectively, drawn

from the experience of several years, that can alone be depended on in

calculations of this nature. So in regard to the median number of vines

presumed to exist at any residency in a future year, to which the medium

produce of a certain number, one thousand, for instance, is to be

applied, the quantity of young vines of the first, second, and third year

must not be indiscriminately advanced, in their whole extent, to the next

annual stage, but a judicious allowance founded on experience must be

made for the accidents to which, in spite of a resident's utmost care,

they will be exposed. Some are lost by neglect or death of the owner;

some are destroyed by inundations, others by elephants and wild

buffaloes, and some by unfavourable seasons, and from these several

considerations the number of vines will ever be found considerably

decreased by the time they have arrived at a bearing state. Another

important object of consideration in these matters is the comparative

state of a residency at any particular period with what may be justly

considered as its medium state. There must exist a determinate proportion

between any number of bearing vines and such a number of young as are

necessary to replace them when they go off and keep up a regular

succession. This will depend in general upon the length of time before

they reach a bearing state and during which they afterwards continue in

it. If this certain proportion happens at any time to be disturbed the

produce must become irregular. Thus, if at any period the number of

bearing vines shall be found to exceed their just proportion to the total

number, the produce at such period is to be considered as above the mean,

and a subsequent decrease may with certainty be predicted, and vice

versa. If then this proportion can be known, and the state of population

in a residency ascertained, it becomes easy to determine the true medium

number of bearing vines in that residency.

There are, agreeably to the form of the survey book, eleven stages or

classes of vines, each advanced one year. Of these classes six are

bearing and five young. If therefore the gardens were not liable to

accidents, but passed on from column to column undiminished, the true

proportion of the bearing vines to the young would be as six to five, or

to the total, as six to eleven. But the various contingencies above

hinted at must tend to reduce this proportion; while, on the other hand,

if any of the gardens should continue longer than is necessary to pass

through all the stages on the survey-book, or should remain more than one

year in a prime state, these circumstances would tend to increase the

proportion. What then is the true medium proportion can only be

determined from experience, and by comparing the state of a residency at

various successive periods. In order to ascertain this point a very

ingenious gentleman and able servant of the East India Company, Mr. John

Crisp, to whom I am indebted for the most part of what I have laid before

the reader on this part of the subject, drew out in the year 1777 a

general comparative view of Manna residency, from the surveys of twelve

years, annexing the produce of each year. From the statement it appeared

that the proportion of the bearing vines to the whole number in that

district was no more than 5.1 to 11, instead of 6 to 11, which would be

the proportion if not reduced by accidents; and further that, when the

whole produce of the twelve years was diffused over the whole number of

bearing vines during that period, the produce of one thousand vines came

out to be four hundred and fifty-three pounds, which must therefore be

estimated as the medium produce of that residency. The same principle of

calculation being applied to the other residencies, it appeared that the

mean annual produce of one thousand vines, in all the various stages of

bearing, taken collectively throughout the country, deduced from the

experience of twelve years, was four hundred and four pounds. It likewise

became evident from the statements drawn out by that gentleman that the

medium annual produce of the Company's settlements on the west coast of

Sumatra ought to be estimated at twelve hundred tons, of sixteen hundred

weight; which is corroborated by an average of the actual receipts for

any considerable number of years.

Thus much will be sufficient to give the reader an idea of

pepper-planting as a kind of science. How far in a commercial light this

produce answers the Company's views in supporting the settlements, is

foreign from my purpose to discuss, though it is a subject on which not a

little might be said. It is the history of the island and its

inhabitants, and not of the European interests, that I attempt to lay

before the public.

SPECIES OF PEPPER.

The natives distinguish three species of pepper, which are called at

different places by different names. At Laye, in the Rejang country, they

term them lado kawur, lado manna, and lado jambi, from the parts where

each sort is supposed to prevail, or from whence it was first brought to

them. The lado kawur, or Lampong pepper, is the strongest plant, and

bears the largest leaf and fruit; is slower in coming to perfection than

the second, but of much longer duration. The leaf and fruit of the lado

manna are somewhat smaller, and it has this peculiarity, that it bears

soon and in large quantities, but seldom passes the third or fourth

year's crop. The jambi, which has deservedly fallen into disrepute, is of

the smallest leaf and fruit, very short-lived, and not without difficulty

trained to the chinkareen. In some places to the southward they

distinguish two kinds only, lado sudul and lado jambi. Lado sulur and

lado anggor are not distinctions of species; the former denoting the

cuttings of young creeping shoots commonly planted, in opposition to the

latter, which is the term for planting by layers.

SEASONS.

The season of the pepper-vines bearing, as well as that of most other

fruit-trees on Sumatra, is subject to great irregularities, owing perhaps

to the uncertainty of the monsoons, which are not there so strictly

periodical as on the western side of India. Generally speaking however

the pepper produces two crops in the year; one called the greater crop

(pupul agung) between the months of October and March; the other called

the lesser or half crop (buah sello) between the months of April and

September, which is small in proportion as the former has been

considerable, and vice versa. Sometimes in particular districts they will

be employed in gathering it in small quantities during the whole year

round, whilst perhaps in others the produce of that year is confined to

one crop; for, although the regular period between the appearance of the

blossom and maturity is about four months, the whole does not ripen at

once, and blossoms are frequently found on the same vine with green and

ripe fruit. In Laye residency the principal harvest of pepper in the year

1766 was gathered between the months of February and May; in 1767 and

1768 about September and October; in 1778 between June and August; and

for the four succeeding years was seldom received earlier than November

and December. Long-continued droughts, which sometimes happen, stop the

vegetation of the vines and retard the produce. This was particularly

experienced in the year 1775, when, for a period of about eight months,

scarcely a shower of rain fell to moisten the earth. The vines were

deprived of their foliage, many gardens perished and a general

destruction was expected. But this apparent calamity was attended with a

consequence not foreseen, though analogous to the usual operations of

nature in that climate. The natives, when they would force a tree that is

backward to produce fruit, strip it of its leaves, by which means the

nutritive juices are reserved for that more important use, and the

blossoms soon begin to show themselves in abundance. A similar effect was

displayed in the pepper gardens by the inclemency of the season. The

vines, as soon as the rains began to descend, threw out blossoms in a

profusion unknown before; old gardens which had been unprolific for two

or three years began to bear; and accordingly the crop of 1776/1777

considerably surpassed that of many preceding years.

TRANSPORTATION OF PEPPER.

The pepper is mostly brought down from the country on rafts (rakit),

which are sometimes composed of rough timbers, but usually of large

bamboos, with a platform of split bamboos to keep the cargo dry. They are

steered at both head and stern, in the more rapid rivers with a kind of

rudder, or scull rather, having a broad blade fixed in a fork or crutch.

Those who steer are obliged to exert the whole strength of the body in

those places especially where the fall of water is steep, and the course

winding; but the purchase of the scull is of so great power that they can

move the raft bodily across the river when both ends are acted upon at

the same time. But, notwithstanding their great dexterity and their

judgment in choosing the channel, they are liable to meet with

obstruction in large trees and rocks, which, from the violence of the

stream, occasion their rafts to be overset, and sometimes dashed to

pieces.

It is a generally received opinion that pepper does not sustain any

damage by an immersion in seawater; a circumstance that attends perhaps a

fourth part of the whole quantity shipped from the coast. The surf,

through which it is carried in an open boat, called a sampan lonchore,

renders such accidents unavoidable. This boat, which carries one or two

tons, being hauled up on the beach and there loaded, is shoved off, with

a few people in it, by a number collected for that purpose, who watch the

opportunity of a lull or temporary intermission of the swell. A

tambangan, or long narrow vessel, built to contain from ten to twenty

tons, (peculiar to the southern part of the coast), lies at anchor

without to receive the cargoes from the sampans. At many places, where

the kwallas, or mouths of the rivers, are tolerably practicable, the

pepper is sent out at once in the tambangans over the bar; but this,

owing to the common shallowness of the water and violence of the surfs,

is attended with considerable risk. Thus the pepper is conveyed either to

the warehouses at the head-settlement or to the ship from Europe lying

there to receive it. About one-third part of the quantity of black pepper

collected, but none of the white, is annually sent to China. Of the

extent and circumstances of the trade in pepper carried on by private

merchants (chiefly American) at the northern ports of Nalabu, Susu, and

Mukki, where it is managed by the subjects of Achin, I have not any

accurate information, and only know that it has increased considerably

during the last twelve years.

NUTMEGS AND CLOVES.

It is well known with what jealousy and rigour the Batavian government

has guarded against the transplantation of the trees producing nutmegs

and cloves from the islands of Banda and Amboina to other parts of India.

To elude its vigilance many attempts have been made by the English, who

considered Sumatra to be well adapted, from its local circumstances, to

the cultivation of these valuable spices; but all proved ineffectual,

until the reduction of the eastern settlements in 1796 afforded the

wished for opportunity, which was eagerly seized by Mr. Robert Broff, at

that period chief of the Residency of Fort Marlborough. As the culture is

now likely to become of importance to the trade of this country, and the

history of its introduction may hereafter be thought interesting, I shall

give it in Mr. Broff's own words:

The acquisition of the nutmeg and clove plants became an object of my

solicitude the moment I received by Captain Newcombe, of his Majesty's

ship Orpheus, the news of the surrender of the islands where they are

produced; being convinced, from the information I had received, that the

country in the neighbourhood of Bencoolen, situated as it is in the same

latitude with the Moluccas, exposed to the same periodical winds, and

possessing the same kind of soil, would prove congenial to their culture.

Under this impression I suggested to the other members of the Board the

expediency of freighting a vessel for the twofold purpose of sending

supplies to the forces at Amboina, for which they were in distress, and

of bringing in return as many spice-plants as could be conveniently

stowed. The proposition was acceded to, and a vessel, of which I was the

principal owner (no other could be obtained), was accordingly dispatched

in July 1806; but the plan was unfortunately frustrated by the imprudent

conduct of a person on the civil establishment to whom the execution was

entrusted. Soon afterwards however I had the good fortune to be more

successful, in an application I made to Captain Hugh Moore, who commanded

the Phoenix country ship, to undertake the importation, stipulating with

him to pay a certain sum for every healthy plant he should deliver.

FIRST INTRODUCTION.

Complete success attended the measure: he returned in July 1798, and I

had the satisfaction of planting myself, and distributing for that

purpose, a number of young nutmeg and a few clove trees in the districts

of Bencoolen and Silebar, and other more distant spots, in order to

ascertain from experience the situations best adapted to their growth. I

particularly delivered to Mr. Charles Campbell, botanist, a portion to be

under his own immediate inspection; and another to Mr. Edward Coles, this

gentleman having in his service a family who were natives of a spice

island and had been used to the cultivation. When I quitted the coast in

January 1799 I had the gratification of witnessing the prosperous state

of the plantations, and of receiving information from the quarters where

they had been distributed of their thriving luxuriantly; and since my

arrival in England various letters have reached me to the same effect. To

the merit therefore of introducing this important article, and of forming

regulations for its successful culture, I put in my exclusive claim; and

am fully persuaded that if a liberal policy is adopted it will become of

the greatest commercial advantage to the Company and to the nation.

...

Further light will be thrown upon this subject and the progress of the

cultivation by the following extract of a letter to me from Mr. Campbell,

dated in November 1803:

Early in the year 1798 Mr. Broff, to whom the highest praise is due for

his enterprising and considerative scheme of procuring the spice trees

from our newly-conquered islands (after experiencing much disappointment

and want of support) overcame every obstacle, and we received, through

the agency of Mr. Jones, commercial resident at Amboina, five or six

hundred nutmeg plants, with about fifty cloves; but these latter were not

in a vigorous state. They were distributed and put generally under my

inspection. Their culture was attended with various success, but Mr.

Coles, from the situation of his farm, near Silebar River but not too

close to the seashore, and from, I believe, bestowing more personal

attention than any of us, has outstripped his competitors. Some trees

which I planted as far inland as the Sugar-loaf Mountain blossomed with

his, but the fruit was first perfected in his ground. The plants were

dispatched from Amboina in March 1798, just bursting from the shell, and

two months ago I plucked the perfect fruit, specimens of which I now send

you; being a period of five years and nine months only; whereas in their

native land eight years at least are commonly allowed. Having early

remarked the great promise of the trees I tried by every means in my

power to interest the Bengal government in our views, and at length, by

the assistance of Dr. Roxburgh, I succeeded.

SECOND IMPORTATION OF PLANTS.

A few months ago his son arrived here from Amboina, with twenty-two

thousand nutmeg plants, and upwards of six thousand cloves, which are

already in my nurseries, and flourishing like those which preceded them.

About the time the nutmegs fruited one clove tree flowered. Only three of

the original importation had survived their transit and the accidents

attending their planting out. Its buds are now filling, and I hope to

transmit specimens of them also. The Malay chiefs have eagerly engaged in

the cultivation of their respective shares. I have retained eight

thousand nutmegs as a plantation from which the fruit may hereafter be

disseminated. Every kind of soil and every variety of situation has been

tried. The cloves are not yet widely dispersed, for, being a tender

plant, I choose to have them under my own eye.

...

Since the death of Mr. Campbell Mr. Roxburgh has been appointed to the

superintendence, and the latest accounts from thence justify the sanguine

expectations formed of the ultimate importance of the trade; there being

at that period upwards of twenty thousand nutmeg trees in full bearing,

capable of yielding annually two hundred thousand pounds weight of

nutmegs, and fifty thousand pounds of mace. The clove plants have proved

more delicate, but the quality of their spice equal to any produced in

the Moluccas.

CULTURE LEFT TO INDIVIDUALS.

It is understood that the Company has declined the monopoly of the trade

and left the cultivation to individual exertion; directing however that

its own immediate plantations be kept up by the labour of convicts from

Bengal, and reserving to itself an export duty of ten per cent on the

value of the spices.

CAMPHOR.

Among the valuable productions of the island as articles of commerce a

conspicuous place belongs to the camphor.

This peculiar substance, called by the natives kapur-barus,* and

distinguished by the epithet of native camphor from another sort which

shall be mentioned hereafter, is a drug for which Sumatra and Borneo have

been celebrated from the earliest times, and with the virtues of which

the Arabian physicians appear to have been acquainted. Chemists formerly

entertained opinions extremely discordant in regard to the nature and the

properties of camphor; and even at this day they seem to be but

imperfectly known. It is considered however as a sedative and powerful

diaphoretic: but my province is to mention such particulars of its

history as have come within my knowledge, leaving to others to

investigate its most beneficial uses.

(*Footnote. The word kapur appears to be derived from the Sanskrit

karpura, and the Arabic and Persian kafur (from whence our camphor) to

have been adopted from the language of the country where the article is

produced. Barus is the name of a place in Sumatra.)

PLACE OF GROWTH.

The tree is a native of the northern parts of the island only, not being

found to the southward of the line, nor yet beyond the third degree of

north latitude. It grows without cultivation in the woods lying near to

the sea-coast, and is equal in height and bulk to the largest timber

trees, being frequently found upwards of fifteen feet in circumference.

WOOD.

For carpenters' purposes the wood is in much esteem, being easy to work,

light, durable, and not liable to be injured by insects, particularly by

the kumbang, a species of the bee, whose destructive perforations have

been already mentioned; but is also said to be more affected than most

others by the changes of the atmosphere. The leaf is small, of a roundish

oval, the fibres running straight and parallel to each other, and

terminates in a remarkably long and slender point. The flower has not yet

been brought to England. The fruit is described by C.F. Gaertner (De

Seminibus Volume 3 page 49 tab. 186) by the name of Dryobalanops

aromatica, from specimens in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks; but he

has unaccountably mistaken it for the cinnamon tree, and spoken of it as

a native of Ceylon. It is also described, from the same specimens, by M.

Correa de Serra (Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle Tome 10 page 159

plate 8) by the name of Pterigium teres; without any reference whatever

to the nature of the tree as yielding this valuable drug. A beautiful

engraving of its very peculiar foliage has been made under the direction

of Mr. A.B. Lambert.

CAMPHOR FOUND IN THE FISSURES.

The camphor is found in the concrete state in which we see it, in natural

fissures or crevices of the wood, but does not exhibit any exterior

appearance by which its existence can be previously ascertained, and the

persons whose employment it is to collect it usually cut down a number of

trees, almost at random, before they find one that contains a sufficient

quantity to repay their labour, although always assisted in their

research by a professional conjurer, whose skill must be chiefly employed

in concealing or accounting for his own mistakes. It is said that not a

tenth part of the number felled is productive either of camphor or of

camphor-oil (meniak kapur), although the latter is less rare; and that

parties of men are sometimes engaged for two or three months together in

the forests, with very precarious success. This scarcity tends to enhance

the price. The tree when cut down is divided transversely into several

blocks, and these again are split with wedges into small pieces, from the

interstices of which the camphor, if any there be, is extracted. That

which comes away readily in large flakes, almost transparent, is esteemed

the prime sort or head; the smaller, clean pieces are considered as

belly, and the minute particles, chiefly scraped from the wood, and often

mixed with it, are called foot; according to the customary terms adopted

in the assortment of drugs. The mode of separating it from these and

other impurities is by steeping and washing it in water, and sometimes

with the aid of soap. It is then passed through sieves or screens of

different apertures in order to make the assortment, so far as that

depends upon the size of the grains; but much of the selection is also

made by hand, and particular care is taken to distinguish from the more

genuine kinds that which is produced by an artificial concretion of the

essential oil.

CAMPHOR OIL.

The inquiries I formerly made on the subject (not having been myself in

the district where the tree grows) led me to believe with confidence that

the oil and the dry crystallized resin were not procured from the same

individual tree; but in this I was first undeceived by Mr. R. Maidman,

who in June 1788 wrote to me from Tappanuli, where he was resident, to

the following effect:

I beg your acceptance of a piece of camphor-wood, the genuine quality of

which I can answer for, being cut by one of my own people, who was

employed in making charcoal, of which the best for smiths' work is made

from this wood. On cutting deep into a pretty large tree the fine oil

suddenly gushed out and was lost for want of a receiver. He felled the

tree, and, having split it, brought me three or four catties (four or

five pounds) of the finest camphor I ever saw, and also this log, which

is very rich. My reason for being thus particular is that the country

people have a method of pouring oil of inferior camphor-trees into a log

of wood that has natural cracks, and, by exposing this to the sun every

day for a week, it appears like genuine camphor; but is the worst sort.

...

This coexistence of the two products has been since confirmed to me by

others, and is particularly stated by Mr. Macdonald in his ingenious

paper on certain Natural Productions of Sumatra, published in the Asiatic

Researches Volume 4 Calcutta 1795. It seems probable on the whole that,

as the tree advances in age, a greater proportion of this essential oil

takes a concrete form, and it has been observed to me that, when the

fresh oil has been allowed to stand and settle, a sediment of camphor is

procured; but the subject requires further examination by well-informed

persons on the spot.

PRICE.

Head camphor is usually purchased from those who procure it at the rate

of six Spanish dollars the pound, or eight dollars the catty, and sells

in the China market at Canton for nine to twelve dollars the pound, or

twelve to fifteen hundred dollars the pekul of a hundred catties or one

hundred thirty-three pounds and a third, avoirdupois. When of superior

quality it sells for two thousand dollars, and I have been assured that

some small choice samples have produced upwards of thirty dollars per

catty.* It is estimated that the whole quantity annually brought down for

sale on the western side of the island does not exceed fifty pekul. The

trade is chiefly in the hands of the Achinese settled at Sinkell, who buy

the article from the Batta people and dispose of it to the Europeans and

Chinese settlers.

(*Footnote. See Price Currents of the China trade. Camphor was purchased

in Sumatra by Commodore Beaulieu in 1622 at the rate of fifteen Spanish

dollars for twenty-eight ounces, which differs but little from the modern

price. In the Transactions of the Society at Batavia it appears that the

camphor of Borneo sells in their market for 3200 rix dollars, and that of

Japan for 50 rix dollars the pekul.)

JAPAN CAMPHOR.

It has been commonly supposed that the people of China or Japan prepare a

factitious substance resembling native camphor, and impregnated with its

virtues by the admixture of a small quantity of the genuine, which is

sold to the Dutch factory for thirty or forty dollars the pekul, sent to

Holland, and afterwards refined to the state in which we see it in our

shops, where it is sold at eight to twelve shillings the pound. It

appears however an extraordinary circumstance that any article could

possibly be so adulterated, bearing at the same time the likeness and

retaining the sensible qualities of its original, as that the dealers

should be enabled, with profit to themselves to resell it for the

fiftieth part of the price they gave. But, upon inquiry of an ingenious

person long resident in China, I learned that the Japan camphor is by no

means a factitious substance, but the genuine produce of a tree growing

in abundance in the latter country, different in every character from

that of Sumatra or Borneo, and well known to our botanists by the name of

Laurus camphora, L. He further informed me that the Chinese never mix the

Sumatran camphor with that from Japan, but purchase the former for their

own use, at the before-mentioned extravagant price, from an idea of its

efficacy, probably superstitious, and export the latter as a drug not

held in any particular estimation. Thus we buy the leaves of their

tea-plant at a high rate and neglect herbs, the natives of our own soil,

possessing perhaps equal virtues. It is known also that the Japan

camphor, termed factitious, will evaporate till it wholly disappears, and

at all stages of its diminution retain its full proportion of strength;

which does not seem the property of an adulterated or compounded body.

Kaempfer informs us that it is prepared from a decoction of the wood and

roots of the tree cut into small pieces; and the form of the lumps in

which it is brought to us shows that it has undergone a process. The

Sumatran sort, though doubtless from its extreme volatility it must be

subject to decrease, does not lose any very sensible quantity from being

kept, as I find from the experience of many years that it has been in my

possession. It probably may not be very easy to ascertain its superiority

over the other in the materia medica, not being brought for sale to this

country, nor generally administered; but from a medical person who

practised at Bencoolen I learned that the usual dose he gave was from

half a grain to one or two grains at the most. The oil, although hitherto

of little importance as an article of commerce, is a valuable domestic

medicine, and much used by the natives as well as Europeans in cases of

strains, swellings, and rheumatic pains; its particles, from their

extreme subtlety, readily entering the pores. It undergoes no

preparation, and is used in the state in which, upon incision, it has

distilled from the tree. The kayu putih (Melaleuca leucadendron) oil,

which is somewhat better known in England, is obtained in the same

manner; but to procure the meniak kayu or common wood-oil, used for

preserving timber or boards exposed to the weather, from decay, and for

boiling with dammar to pay the bottoms of ships and boats, the following

method is practised. They make a transverse incision into the tree to the

depth of some inches, and then cut sloping down from the notch, till they

leave a flat superficies. This they hollow out to a capacity to receive

about a quart. They then put into the hollow a bit of lighted reed, and

let it remain for about ten minutes, which, acting as a stimulus, draws

the fluid to that part. In the space of a night the liquor fills the

receptacle prepared for it, and the tree continues to yield a lesser

quantity for three successive nights, when the fire must be again

applied: but on a few repetitions it is exhausted.

BENZOIN.

Benzoin or Benjamin (Styrax benzoin*) called by the Malays kami­nian, is,

like the camphor, found almost exclusively in the Batta country, to the

northward of the equator, but not in the Achinese dominions immediately

beyond that district. It is also met with, though rarely, south of the

line, but there, either from natural inferiority or want of skill in

collecting it, the small quantity produced is black and of little value.

The tree does not grow to any considerable size, and is of no value as

timber. The seeds or nuts, which are round, of a brown colour, and about

the size of a moderate bolus, are sown in the padi-fields and afterwards

require no other cultivation than to clear away the shrubs from about the

young plants. In some places, especially near the sea-coast, large

plantations of it are formed, and it is said that the natives, sensible

of the great advantage accruing to them from the trade, in a national

point of view, oblige the proprietors, by legal regulation, to keep up

the succession.

(*Footnote. See a Botanical Description of this tree by my friend Mr.

Jonas Dryander, with a plate, in Volume 77 page 307 of the Philosophical

Transactions for the year 1787.)

MODE OF PROCURING IT.

When the trees have attained the age of about seven years, and are six or

eight inches in diameter, incisions are made in the bark, from whence the

balsam or gum (as it is commonly termed, although being soluble in

spirits and not in water, it is rather a resin) exudes, which is

carefully pared off. The purest of the gum, or Head benzoin, is that

which comes from these incisions during the first three years, and is

white, inclining to yellow, soft, and fragrant; after which it gradually

changes to the second sort, which is of a reddish yellow, degenerating to

brown; and at length when the tree, which will not bear a repetition of

the process for more than ten or twelve years, is supposed to be worn

out, they cut it down, and when split in pieces procure, by scraping, the

worst sort, or Foot benzoin, which is dark coloured, hard, and mixed more

or less with parings of the wood and other impurities. The Head is

further distinguished into Europe and India-head, of which the first is

superior, and is the only sort adapted to the home market: the latter,

with most of the inferior sorts, is exported to Arabia,* Persia, and some

parts of India, where it is burned to perfume with its smoke their

temples and private houses, expel troublesome insects, and obviate the

pernicious effects of unwholesome air or noxious exhalations; in addition

to which uses, in the Malayan countries, it is always considered as a

necessary part of the apparatus in administering an oath. It is brought

down from the country for sale in large cakes, called tampang, covered

with mats; and these, as a staple commodity, are employed in their

dealings for a standard of value, to which the price of other things have

reference, as in most parts of the world to certain metals. In order to

pack it in chests it is necessary to soften the coarser sorts with

boiling water; for the finer it is sufficient to break the lumps and to

expose it to the heat of the sun. The greater part of the quantity

brought to England is re-exported from thence to countries where the

Roman Catholic and Mahometan religions prevail, to be there burnt as

incense in the churches and temples.** The remainder is chiefly employed

in medicine, being much esteemed as an expectorant and styptic, and

constitutes the basis of that valuable balsam distinguished by the name

of Turlington, whose very salutary effects, particularly in healing green

and other wounds, is well known to persons abroad who cannot always

obtain surgical assistance. It is also employed, if I am not misinformed,

in the preparation of court sticking-plaster. The gum or resin called

dulang is named by us scented benzoin from its peculiar fragrance. The

rasamala (Lignum papuanum of Rumphius, and Altingia excelsa of the

Batavian Transactions) is a sort of wild benzoin, of little value, and

not, in Sumatra, considered as an object of commerce.

(*Footnote. Les Arabes tirent beaucoup d'autres sortes d'encens de

l'Habbesch, de Sumatra, Siam, Java, etc. et parmi celles-la une qu'ils

appellent Bachor (bakhor) Java, et que les Anglois nomment Benzoin, est

tres semblable a l'Oliban. On en exporte en grande quantite en Turquie

parles golfes d'Arabie et de Perse, et la moindre des trois especes de

Benzoin, que les marchands vendent, est estimee meilleure que l'Oliban

d'Arabie. Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie page 126.)

(**Footnote. According to Mr. Jackson the annual importation of Benzoin

at Mogodor from London is about 13,000 pounds annually.)

CASSIA.

Cassia or kulit manis (Laurus cassia) is a coarse species of cinnamon

which flourishes chiefly, as well as the two foregoing articles, in the

northern part of the island; but with this difference, that the camphor

and benzoin grow only near the coast, whereas the cassia is a native of

the central parts of the country. It is mostly procured in those

districts which lie inland of Tapanuli, but it is also found in Musi,

where Palembang River takes its rise. The leaves are about four inches

long, narrower than the bay (to which tribe it belongs) and more pointed;

deep green; smooth surface, and plain edge. The principal fibres take

their rise from the peduncle. The young leaves are mostly of reddish hue.

The blossoms grow six in number upon slender foot­stalks, close to the

bottom of the leaf. They are monopetalous, small, white, stellated in six

points. The stamina are six, with one stile, growing from the germen,

which stands up in three brownish segments, resembling a cup. The trees

grow from fifty to sixty feet high, with large, spreading, horizontal

branches, almost as low as the earth. The root is said to contain much

camphor that may be obtained by boiling or other processes unknown on

Sumatra. No pains is bestowed on the cultivation of the cassia. The bark,

which is the part in use, is commonly taken from such of the trees as are

a foot or eighteen inches diameter, for when they are younger it is said

to be so thin as to lose all its qualities very soon. The difference of

soil and situation alters considerably the value of the bark. Those trees

which grow in a high rocky soil have red shoots, and the bark is superior

to that which is produced in a moist clay, where the shoots are green. I

have been assured by a person of extensive knowledge that the cassia

produced on Sumatra is from the same tree which yields the true cinnamon,

and that the apparent difference arises from the less judicious manner of

quilling it. Perhaps the younger and more tender branches should be

preferred; perhaps the age of the tree or the season of the year ought to

be more nicely attended to; and lastly I have known it to be suggested

that the mucilaginous slime which adheres to the inside of the fresh

peeled rind does, when not carefully wiped off, injure the flavour of the

cassia and render it inferior to that of the cinnamon. I am informed that

it has been purchased by Dutch merchants at our India sales, where it

sometimes sold to much loss, and afterwards by them shipped for Spain as

cinnamon, being packed in boxes which had come from Ceylon with that

article. The price it bears in the island is about ten or twelve dollars

the pecul.

RATTANS.

Rattans or rotan (Calamus rotang) furnish annually many large cargoes,

chiefly from the eastern side of the island, where the Dutch buy them to

send to Europe; and the country traders for the western parts of India.

Walking-canes, or tongkat, of various kinds, are also produced near the

rivers which open to the straits of Malacca.

COTTON.

In almost every part of the country two species of cotton are cultivated,

namely, the annual sort named kapas (Gossypium herbaceum), and the shrub

cotton named kapas besar (Gossypium herboreum). The cotton produced from

both appears to be of very good quality, and might, with encouragement,

be procured in any quantities; but the natives raise no more than is

necessary for their own domestic manufactures. The silk cotton or kapok

(bombax) is also to be met with in every village. This is, to appearance,

one of the most beautiful raw materials the hand of nature has presented.

Its fineness, gloss, and delicate softness render it, to the sight and

touch, much superior to the labour of the silkworm; but owing to the

shortness and brittleness of the staple it is esteemed unfit for the reel

and loom, and is only applied to the unworthy purpose of stuffing pillows

and mattresses. Possibly it has not undergone a fair trial in the hands

of our ingenious artists, and we may yet see it converted into a valuable

manufacture. It grows in pods, from four to six inches long, which burst

open when ripe. The seeds entirely resemble the black pepper, but are

without taste. The tree is remarkable from the branches growing out

perfectly straight and horizontal, and being always three, forming equal

angles, at the same height: the diminutive shoots likewise grow flat; and

the several gradations of branches observe the same regularity to the

top. Some travellers have called it the umbrella tree, but the piece of

furniture called a dumb-waiter exhibits a more striking picture of it.

BETEL-NUT.

The betel-nut or pinang (Areca catechu) before mentioned is a

considerable article of traffic to the coast of Coromandel or Telinga,

particularly from Achin.

COFFEE.

The coffee-trees are universally planted, but the fruit produced here is

not excellent in quality, which is probably owing entirely to the want of

skill in the management of them. The plants are disposed too close to

each other, and are so much overshaded by other trees that the sun cannot

penetrate to the fruit; owing to which the juices are not well ripened,

and the berries, which become large, do not acquire a proper flavour. Add

to this that the berries are gathered whilst red, which is before they

have arrived at a due degree of maturity, and which the Arabs always

permit them to attain to, esteeming it essential to the goodness of the

coffee. As the tree is of the same species with that cultivated in Arabia

there is little doubt but with proper care this article might be produced

of a quality equal, perhaps superior, to that imported from the West

Indies; though probably the heavy rains on Sumatra may prevent its

attaining to the perfection of the coffee of Mocha.*

(*Footnote. For these observations on the growth of the coffee, as well

as many others on the vegetable productions of the island, I am indebted

to the letters of Mr. Charles Miller, entered on the Company's records at

Bencoolen, and have to return him my thanks for many communications since

his return to England. On the subject of this article of produce I have

since received the following interesting information from the late Mr.

Charles Campbell in a letter dated November 1803. "The coffee you

recollect on this coast I found so degenerated from want of culture and

care as not to be worth the rearing. But this objection has been removed,

for more than three years ago I procured twenty-five plants from Mocha;

they produced fruit in about twenty months, are now in their second crop,

and loaded beyond any fruit-trees I ever saw. The average produce is

about eight pounds a tree; but so much cannot be expected in extensive

plantations, nor in every soil. The berries are in no respect inferior in

flavour to those of the parent country." This cultivation, I am happy to

hear, has since been carried to a great extent.)

(PLATE 2. THE DAMMAR, A SPECIES OF PINUS.

Sinensis delt. Swaine Sc.

Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)

DAMMAR.

The dammar is a kind of turpentine or resin from a species of pine, and

used for the same purposes to which that and pitch are applied. It is

exported in large quantities to Bengal and elsewhere. It exudes, or

flows rather, spontaneously from the tree in such plenty that there is no

need of making incisions to procure it. The natives gather it in lumps

from the ground where it has fallen, or collect it from the shores of

bays and rivers whither it has floated. It hangs from the bough of the

tree which produces it in large pieces, and hardening in the air it

becomes brittle and is blown off by the first high wind. When a quantity

of it has fallen in the same place it appears like a rock, and thence,

they say, or more probably from its hardness, it is called dammar batu;

by which name it is distinguished from the dammar kruyen. This is another

species of turpentine, yielded by a tree growing in Lampong, called

kruyen, the wood of which is white and porous. It differs from the common

sort, or dammar batu, in being soft and whitish, having the consistence

and somewhat the appearance of putty. It is in much estimation for paying

the bottoms of vessels, for which use, to give it firmness and duration,

it ought to be mixed with some of the hard kind, of which it corrects the

brittleness. The natives, in common, do not boil it, but rub or smear it

on with their hands; a practice which is probably derived from indolence,

unless, as I have been informed, that boiling it, without oil, renders it

hard. To procure it, an incision is made in the tree.

DRAGONS-BLOOD.

Dragons-blood, Sanguis draconis, or jaranang, is a drug obtained from a

large species of rattan, called rotan jaranang, growing abundantly in the

countries of Palembang and Jambi, where it is manufactured and exported,

in the first instance to Batavia, and from thence to China, where it is

held in much estimation; but whether it be precisely the drug of our

shops, so named, I cannot take upon me to determine. I am informed that

it is prepared in the following manner: the stamina and other parts of

fructification of this plant, covered with the farina, are mixed with a

certain proportion of white dammar, and boiled in water until the whole

is well incorporated, and the water evaporated; by which time the

composition has acquired a red colour, and, when rubbed between the

fingers, comes off in a dry powder. Whilst soft, it is usually poured

into joints of small bamboo, and shipped in that state. According to this

account, which I received from my friend Mr. Philip Braham, who had an

opportunity of acquiring a knowledge of the process, the resinous quality

of the drug belongs only to the dammar, and not to the rotan.

GAMBIR.

Gambir, or gatah gambir, is a juice extracted from the leaves of a plant

of that name, inspissated by decoction, strained, suffered to cool and

harden, and then cut into cakes of different shapes, or formed into

balls. It is very generally eaten by the natives with their sirih or

betel, and is supposed to have the property of cleansing and sweetening

the mouth; for which reason it is also rubbed to the gums of infants. For

a minute detail of the culture and manufacture of this article at Malacca

see the Batavian Transactions Volume 2 page 356, where the plant is

classed between the portlandia and roella of L. In other places it is

obtained from a climbing or trailing plant, evidently the Funis uncatus

of Rumphius.* See also Observations on the Nauclea Gambir, by Mr. W.

Hunter, in the Linnean Transactions Volume 9 page 218. At Siak, Kampar,

and Indragiri, on the eastern side of Sumatra, it is an important article

of commerce.

(*Footnote. Hoc unum adhuc addendum est, in Sumatra nempe ac forte in

Java aliam quoque esse plantam repentem gatta gambir akar dictam, qum

forte unae eaedemque erunt plantae; ac verbum akar Malaiensibus denotat

non tantum radicem, sed repentem quoque fruticem. Volume 5 page 64.)

LIGNUM ALOES.

The agallochin, agila-wood, or lignum aloes, called by the natives

kalambak and kayu gahru, is highly prized in all parts of the East, for

the fragrant scent it emits in burning. I find these two names used

indiscriminately in Malayan writings, and sometimes coupled together; but

Valentyn pronounces the gahru to be an inferior species, and the Batavian

Catalogue describes it as the heart of the rasamala, and different from

the genuine kalambak. This unctuous substance, which burns like a resin,

is understood to be the decayed, and probably disordered, part of the

tree. It is described by Kaempfer (Amaenit page 903) under the Chinese

name of sinkoo, and by Dr. Roxburgh under that of Aquillaria agallocha.

TIMBER.

The forests contain an inexhaustible store and endless variety of timber

trees, many sorts of which are highly valuable and capable of being

applied to ship-building and other important purposes. On the western

coast the general want of navigable rivers has materially hindered both

the export and the employment of timber; but those on the eastern side,

particularly Siak, have heretofore supplied the city of Batavia with

great abundance, and latterly the naval arsenal at Pulo Pinang with what

is required for the construction of ships of war.

TEAK.

The teak however, the pride of Indian forests, called by the Malays jati

(Tectona grandis, L.), does not appear to be indigenous to this island,

although flourishing to the northward and southward of it, in Pegu and

Java; and I believe it is equally a stranger to the Malayan peninsula.

Attempts have been made by the servants of the Company to promote its

cultivation. Mr. Robert Hay had a plantation near Bencoolen, but the

situation seemed unfavourable. Mr. John Marsden, when resident of Laye in

the year 1776, sowed some seeds of it, and distributed a quantity amongst

the inhabitants of his district. The former, at least, throve

exceedingly, as if in their natural soil. The appearance of the tree is

stately, the leaves are broad and large, and they yield, when squeezed, a

red juice. The wood is well known to be, in many respects, preferable to

oak, working more kindly, surpassing it in durability, and having the

peculiar property of preserving the iron bolts driven into it from rust;

a property that may be ascribed to the essential oil or tar contained in

it, and which has lately been procured from it in large quantities by

distillation at Bombay. Many ships built at that place have continued to

swim so long that none could recollect the period at which they were

launched.

POON, ETC.

For masts and yards the wood preferred is the red bintangur (a species of

uvaria), which in all the maritime parts of India has obtained the name

of poon or puhn, from the Malayan word signifying tree in general; as

puhn upas, the poison-tree, puhn kayu, a timber-tree, etc.

The camphor-wood, so useful for carpenters' purposes, has been already

mentioned.

Kayu pindis or kapini (species of metrosideros), is named also kayu besi,

or iron-wood, on account of its extraordinary hardness, which turns the

edge of common tools.

Marbau (Metrosideros amboinensis, R.) grows to a large size, and is used

for beams both in ship and house­building, as well as for other purposes

to which oak is applied in Europe. Pinaga is valuable as crooked timber,

and used for frames and knees of ships, being also very durable. It

frequently grows in the wash of the sea.

Juar, ebony, called in the Batavian Catalogue kayu arang, or

charcoal-wood, is found here in great plenty.

Kayu gadis, a wood possessing the flavour and qualities of the sassafras,

and used for the same purposes in medicine, but in the growth of the tree

resembling rather our elm than the laurus (to which latter tribe the

American sassafras belongs), is very common in the plains near Bencoolen.

Kayu arau (Casuarina littorea) is often termed a bastard-pine, and as

such gave name to the Isle of Pines discovered by Captain Cook. By the

Malays it is usually called kayu chamara, from the resemblance of its

branches to the ornamental cowtails of Upper India. It has been already

remarked of this tree, whose wood is not particularly useful, that it

delights in a low sandy soil, and is ever the first that springs up from

land relinquished by the sea.

The rangas or rungi, commonly supposed to be the manchineel of the West

Indies, but perhaps only from the noxious quality of its juices, is the

Arbor vernicis of Rumphius, and particularly described in the Batavian

Transactions Volume 5 under the name of Manga deleteria sylvestris,

fructu parvo cordiformi. In a list of plants in the same volume, by F.

Norona, it is termed Anacardium encardium. The wood has some resemblance

to mahogany, is worked up into articles of furniture, and resists the

destructive ravages of the white ant, but its hardness and acrid sap,

which blisters the hands of those employed about it, are objections to

its general use. I am not aware of the natives procuring a varnish from

this tree.

Of the various sorts of tree producing dammar, some are said to be

valuable as timber, particularly the species called dammar laut, not

mentioned by Rumphius, which is employed at Pulo Pinang for frame timbers

of ships, beams, and knees.

Kamuning (camunium, R. chalcas paniculata, Lour.) is a light-coloured

wood, close, and finely grained, takes an exquisite polish, and is used

for the sheaths of krises. There is also a red-grained sort, in less

estimation. The appearance of the tree is very beautiful, resembling in

its leaves the larger myrtle, with a white flower.

The langsani likewise is a wood handsomely veined, and is employed for

cabinet and carved work.

Beside these the kinds of wood most in use are the madang, ballam,

maranti, laban, and marakuli. The variety is much greater, but many, from

their porous nature and proneness to decay, are of very little value, and

scarcely admit of seasoning before they become rotten.

I cannot quit the vegetable kingdom without noticing a tree which,

although of no use in manufacture or commerce, not peculiar to the

island, and has been often described, merits yet, for its extreme

singularity, that it should not be passed over in silence. This is the

jawi-jawi and ulang-ulang of the Malays, the banyan tree of the

continent, the Grossularia domestica of Rumphius, and the Ficus indica or

Ficus racemosa of Linnaeus. It possesses the uncommon property of

dropping roots or fibres from certain parts of its boughs, which, when

they touch the earth, become new stems, and go on increasing to such an

extent that some have measured, in circumference of the branches, upwards

of a thousand feet, and have been said to afford shelter to a troop of

horse.* These fibres, that look like ropes attached to the branches, when

they meet with any obstruction in their descent conform themselves to the

shape of the resisting body, and thus occasion many curious

metamorphoses. I recollect seeing them stand in the perfect shape of a

gate long after the original posts and cross piece had decayed and

disappeared; and I have been told of their lining the internal

circumference of a large bricked well, like the worm in a distiller's

tub; there exhibiting the view of a tree turned inside out, the branches

pointing to the centre, instead of growing from it. It is not more

extraordinary in its manner of growth than whimsical and fantastic in its

choice of situations. From the side of a wall or the top of a house it

seems to spring spontaneously. Even from the smooth surface of a wooden

pillar, turned and painted, I have seen it shoot forth, as if the

vegetative juices of the seasoned timber had renewed their circulation

and begun to produce leaves afresh. I have seen it flourish in the centre

of a hollow tree of a very different species, which however still

retained its verdure, its branches encompassing those of the adventitious

plant whilst its decayed trunk enclosed the stem, which was visible, at

interstices, from nearly the level of the plain on which they grew. This

in truth appeared so striking a curiosity that I have often repaired to

the spot to contemplate the singularity of it. How the seed from which it

is produced happens to occupy stations seemingly so unnatural is not

easily determined. Some have imagined the berries carried thither by the

wind, and others, with more appearance of truth, by the birds; which,

cleansing their bills where they light, or attempt to light, leave, in

those places, the seeds adhering by the viscous matter which surrounds

them. However this be, the jawi-jawi, growing on buildings without earth

or water, and deriving from the genial atmosphere its principle of

nourishment, proves in its increasing growth highly destructive to the

fabric where it is harboured; for the fibrous roots, which are at first

extremely fine, penetrate common cements, and, overcoming as their size

enlarges the most powerful resistance, split, with the force of the

mechanic wedge, the most substantial brickwork. When the consistence is

such as not to admit the insinuation of the fibres the root extends

itself along the outside, and to an extraordinary length, bearing not

unfrequently to the stem the proportion of eight to one when young. I

have measured the former sixty inches, when the latter, to the extremity

of the leaf, which took up a third part, was no more than eight inches. I

have also seen it wave its boughs at the apparent height of two hundred

feet, of which the roots, if we may term them such, occupied at least one

hundred; forming by their close combination the appearance of a venerable

gothic pillar. It stood near the plains of Krakap, but, like other

monuments of antiquity, it had its period of existence, and is now no

more.

(*Footnote. The following is an account of the dimensions of a remarkable

banyan or burr tree, near Manjee, twenty miles west of Patna in Bengal.

Diameter 363 to 375 feet. Circumference of shadow at noon 1116 feet.

Circumference of the several stems, in number fifty or sixty, 921 feet.

Under this tree sat a naked Fakir, who had occupied that situation for

twenty-five years; but he did not continue there the whole year through,

for his vow obliged him to lie, during the four cold months, up to his

neck in the waters of the river Ganges.)

(PLATE 18. ENTRANCE OF PADANG RIVER.

With Buffaloes.)

(PLATE 18A. VIEW OF PADANG HILL.

Published by W. Marsden, 1810.)