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growing wild in the hedges. The largest of the palm tribe. The fruit Dutch have also introduced the American potatoe, the common potatoe, artichokes, cabbages, peas, and other European garden stuffs. Cucumbers are cultivated, and consumed in large quantities. The cocoa-nut, the ground pestachio, the Palma Christi, and sesamum, are raised for the oil which they afford. The cocoa-nut grows best near the sea, and is seldom met with in the interior. The best edible oil is obtained from a large handsome tree named Kanari, which yields a nut of an oblong shape, nearly as large as a walnut. The sago-palm is an important article of the husbandry of this region. It is one of the humblest of the palm tribe, and has, in the early period of its growth, the appearance of a bush with many shoots. The stem contains an enormous volume of a spongy medullary matter, like that of the alder. This is the edible part, and from it the bread of the islanders is formed. A good sago plantation or forest is a bog knee deep.

"When the pith is ascertained to be ripe, the tree is cut down near the root, and the trunk subdivided into portions of six or seven feet long, each of which is split into two parts. From these the medullary matter is extracted, which, with an instrument of bamboo or hard wood, is forthwith reduced to a powder like saw-dust. The process of separating the farina from the accompanying bran and filaments is simple and obvious, and consists merely in mixing the powdered medulla with water, and passing the water charged with the farina through a sieve at one end of the trough in which the mixture is made. The water so charged is made to pass into a second vessel, where the farina falls to the bottom, and, after two or more edulcorations, is fit for use. This is the raw sago meal, which keeps, without further preparation, a month. For further use, this meal is made into cakes, which keep a long time." Vol. I. pp. 389, 390.

Among the plants raised as articles of native luxury is the Areca palm. It has a graceful stem about thirty or forty feet high, begins to bear fruit when six years old, and to leave off bearing and to die about the age of twenty-five. The fruit in the green state is eaten, and the ripe nut is a great object of commerce. The Sagwire or Gomuti palm, which yields a saccharine liquor much used by the natives as a beverage, is also extensively cultivated. It is one of the

is in great abundance, and grows from shoots on strings about three feet in length. The liquor or toddy flows from the shoots of fructification on the first appearance of the fruit, after they have been beaten for three successive days with a small stick. This is fermented into a liquor possessing an intoxicating quality, is manufactured into sugar or into wine, and from the wine the Batavian arrack is prepared. The gomuti palm thrives best in hot dry plains. The betel vine, which yields the pepper of that name, is raised for its aromatic and pungent leaves. These, with the nut of the Areca palm, and other occasional ingredients, are used as a masticatory. The plant is cultivated in separate gardens, near villages, where water is abundant. It is propagated by slips, affords leaves fit for use in the second year, and continues to yield them for more than thirty years. The juice called Gambis, an article of extensive consumption and traffic, is obtained from the leaves of a shrub. The plant grows in dry situations, and is propagated from the seed. When the seedlings are about nine inches high, they are transplanted, and never rise above the height of five feet. juice is boiled in iron pots to the consistence of a syrup, and, when cool, becomes solid, and is cut into square cakes. It is used as a masticatory, and much of it is exported into China. Tobacco is of universal consumption, and is, consequently, raised in large quantities, chiefly on the lands watered by artificial irrigation. The leaf is always shred when green, after having been freed from the fibrous midrib. The Banana, the Bread fruit, the Mangustin-the most exquisite of Indian fruits,-the Durian, which never cloys or palls on the appetite,— the Juck, which grows to an enormous size,-the Mango, a fruit of a delicate flavour,-the orange and lemon tribe, in great profusion,-the pine-apple, the Guava, the Papaya, the custardapple, the cashew tree, the pomegranate, the tamarind, with a great variety of other fruits, both indigenous and exotic, are cultivated in many of the islands, and are even found wild in some of them. Flowering plants, shrubs, and trees, are also abundant and various, and the prevailing colours are yellow and red.

The

The common cotton of Java is cultivated as a green crop after rice, the submersion the plant undergoes during the rains causing it then to perish; in upland soils it becomes a perennial plant, continuing to bear for several years. "The Indian islands produce a great number of plants yielding a filacious bark which affords materials for cordage." The rattan, a prickly bush sending forth long shoots, is of very extensive utility. The bamboo and many of the palms furnish materials for many of the native arts and manufactures. The forests abound in excellent timber trees, among which is the teak tree, and many others well fitted for economical and ornamental uses. Indigo and other colouring drugs are abundant, among which are the Brazil wood. The Anchar, a large tree, and the Chetik, a creeping shrub, afford a subtle and deleterious poison.

Our author next proceeds to the consideration of the culture of those plants which are raised chiefly for the value set upon their produce by foreigners. Among these the sugarcane holds a conspicuous place. Of this there are several varieties; but they are all cultivated in the same manner. Sugar-cane is never planted in the finest soils, and for the manufacture of sugar, slips of the cane are planted in the months of July and August, and cut in those of May and June.

At

"The process of manufacture is as follows: The rice is first boiled, and after cooling a quantity of yest is added to it, and it is pressed into baskets, in which condition it is placed over a tub, or tubs, for eight days, during which time a liquor flows abundantly from the mixture. the end of that time, the liquor so distilled is taken out, and mixed with the molasses and palm-wine, which had been previously combined. The mixture remains in a small vessel for one day only, when it is removed into large fermenting vats, in which it remains for seven. When, at the termination of this period, the process fermentation is over, the liquor is finally removed into the stills, and, according to the number of distillations it undergoes, becomes arrack of the first, second, or third quality in commerce.'

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of

Vol. I. pp. 478, 479.

A valuable and almost an exclusive product of the Indian islands is Black Pepper, (Piper nigrum,) which

grows on a hardy vine-like plant, with
dark-green, heart-shaped, and point-
ed leaves. It climbs to the height of
twenty-five feet, and the fruit ap-
pears in clusters on the short brittle
branches like bunches of currants.
The fruit is first green, then red, and
finally black; and two crops are ge-
nerally obtained in the course of the
year. This plant is supposed to have
been introduced into the Archipelago
from Malabar, where it grows wild.
It is, however, congenial to the soil
of the islands. It is sometimes train-
ed to dead poles, as in the culture of
hops; and sometimes it is supported
by the Areca and even the Cocoanut
palm. The vine is occasionally pro-
pagated by laying the young shoots.
It usually yields fruit in the third
year, is in full bearing in the fifth,
and continues stationary for eight or
In reaping the pepper,
nine years.
the reaper nips off the clusters when
the first berries of each appear red,
though the rest be still green. White
pepper, as is now well known, is black
pepper blanched. The culture of cof-
fee in Java is somewhat peculiar. It
thrives best in vallies near high moun-
tains, under the shade of trees.
this end the Dădap is planted by cut-
tings at the same time with the cof-
fee plants. Coffee is now planted in
hedges, where it is found to produce
large crops of berries, in no measure
inferior to the more elaborate produce
of the regular gardens. Weeding and
hoeing are the principal cares of the
cultivator; no pruning is practised,
the plants being permitted to shoot in
wild luxuriance. The plants afford a
small crop in the third year, and a
full one in the fourth; and according
as they occupy a low or an elevated
situation, they continue to bear from
The culture
ten to twenty years.
of Cocoa has been introduced of late
years into Java and the Philippines,
but has not hitherto been carried to
any great extent.

For

The Clove (Caryophulus aromaticus) claims the first place among the finer spiceries. The tree on which it grows resembles the laurel, and sometimes the beech, and is in height about the same as that of the cherry tree. In the beginning of the wet season it throws out a profusion of branches, at the extremities of which the young cloves make their appearance, and in four months the fruit is

completely formed. It changes from green to yellow, and from yellow to red. The clove harvest then commences, but in this state the fruit is not completely matured for the purposes of propagation. It swells after this in the course of three weeks to an extraordinary size, loses much of its spicy quality, and contains a hard nucleus like the seed of the bay. There appear to be five varieties of the clove; but its geographical distribution is very limited, being originally confined to the five Molucca islands, and chiefly to Machian. The cloves, when taken from the tree, are placed on hurdles and smoked to a brown colour by means of a slow wood fire. The period of harvest is from October to December. The next in order of this class is the Nutmeg tree, (Nux myristica,) which grows to the height of fifty feet, with a well branched stem. The leaves resem. ble those of the pear; when rubbed they emit a fine aromatic odour; and when the tree is cut a blood red coloured liquid, which gives an indelible stain to cloth, issues from the wound.

"The tree bears throughout the year, the same plant having flowers and fruit in every stage. The fruit is about the size, and has much the appearance, of a necta rine. It is marked all round by a furrow, such as the peach has on one side only. The outer coat of this fruit is smooth, and when young of a lively green. As it ripens it acquires a red blush like a ripe peach, and bursting at the furrow, exhibits the nutmeg with its reticulated coat the mace of a fine crimson colour. The external pulpy covering is about half an inch thick, of a firm consistence, succulent, and to the taste austere and astringent. Appearing through the interstices of the mace is the nutmeg, which is loosely inclosed in a thin shell of black glossy appearance, not difficultly broken." Vol. I. p. 504.

This tree is found in New Holland, in the southern peninsula of India, in Cochinchina, in New Guinea, and other places remotely situated from each other, so that it has a far wider geographical distribution than the clove. The fruit is gathered in April, July, and November; its maturity is discovered by the blush on the pulpy covering. The mace is first separat ed from the nutmeg, and then dried in the sun; the nutmegs are also dried in the sun; then smoked over a wood

fire for three months, then freed from their shells, and finally they are dipped in lime-water. Among the minor spicy products are the Massoy bark tree, seldom used for culinary purposes, but as an ingredient in cosmetics; the Culitlawan, a species of laurel cultivated for its bark; the Cassia tree, found in several of the islands; and the Curdamom. Ginger is extensively diffused, but is inferior in quality to that of Malabar and Bengal. Malayan Camphor is not the product of a laurel as in Japan, but of a large forest tree, remarkable for yielding a variety of resinous substances. Benzoin is obtained from a small tree which grows in rich moist lands, such as are suitable for the culture of marsh rice. Sandal wood is found in three varieties, white, yellow, and red, the two first being most esteemed. It is a native of the mountains; and from Java and Madura eastward it is scattered in small quantities throughout the different islands. (To be continued.)

CORRESPONDENCE OF THE DE COVERLEY FAMILY.

Bandyborough, June 19, 1820.

MR EDITOR,

THE very obliging manner in which you have accepted the offer of my correspondence, ought to have animated me to fresh exertions; but human nature is human nature, and procrastination forms a very principal part in its composition, at least it does in the composition of the De Coverleys. I have been intending every day for the last month to have followed up the detailed account I before sent you of myself, by giving you some account of my family, which, as I have al ready said, consists of two sons and a daughter; but one thing that has delayed my writing to you has been the consideration of how I might be able to say all I think of my children's good qualities, without making myself liable to be laughed at as a blind doating father, and how I should, with just impartiality, point out their defects and failings, without wounding their feelings, or my own. I think, therefore, the best way of giving you an insight into their characters will be to let them speak for themselves, and I will begin with my eldest son

Richard, and transcribe a letter had from him soon after I arrived at this place.

To John De Caverley, Esq.

MY DEAR FATHER, I AM happy to find that the air of Bandyborough is more favourable to letter-writing than the air of London, for, indeed, my dear Sir, when you lived there, you were a wretched correspondent, but now I have more reason to admire than to complain. Thank you most sincerely for your two last letters. You do me but justice in supposing you cannot enter too minutely into family details; what concerns you, and my dear mother and sister, are more to me than all the politics of Europe. Apropos of polities, I am amused with all you tell me about the party politics of your late election; and I am heartily glad that all the little feuds and animosities resulting therefrom are beginning to subside. For my own part, I think there should be an act of oblivion at every fresh election, as there is an act of grace at every fresh reign, and it should be unlawful to remember, and high treason against good fellowship to repeat, any of the little squibs, affronts, insults, and ill-natured witticisms that occur during the saturnalia of an election. The talking over an election, when it is concluded, is almost as bad as talking over a game at cards after it has been played, or discussing the merits of a dinner after it has been eaten; such chewings of the cud may show a good memory, but exhibit mighty little imagination. Tell Fanny I shall write her a long letter very soon, with a full account of all my proceedings, but for the present let it suffice to know, that I have been very quiet and very stupid. Little else has been talked of for the last week, but the Queen's threatened return to England. The general opinion seems to be that she will not come, but I, for the sake of contradiction, being the thing we lawyers live by, have laid a wager with Ned Trevor that she will come. Let not my cautious mother shake her head, and say, "Dear me, how silly!" for, with true professional skill, I have laid my bet with all the odds in my favour, for if her Majesty should visit " her beloved England," I shall

VOL. VII.

win five guineas, and if she stays abroad, I shall be better pleased than if I had won ten.

I rejoice to hear that my good mother is becoming reconciled to her new abode. I hope she and her antagonist the butcher have accommodated their differences, and that either she has taught him to cut his meat in the London fashion, or that he has taught her to eat it as the good folks at Bandyborough do, for things cannot long remain at such extremities between persons so necessary to each other. I am glad she (my mother) has been admitted into the whist coterie, as I doubt not she will find it a great resource in long winter evenings, and longer summer ones. But what will she do without her saucy son to stand at her elbow to remind her from time to time what are trumps? But tell her, though still saucy, I am always her affectionate son. And am, my dear father, yours,

RICHARD DE COVERLEY. Tell George, if still with you, I wish the next epic poem he sends franked, or pay the postage. me by the post, he would either get

You will perceive, Mr Editor, from his own account, that he is intended for the bar, and you will guess that he is a cheerful light-hearted fellow, somewhat of a rattle; indeed I fear he would be what is called a quizzer, if his excessive good nature and dread of giving pain did not keep the vivacity of his temper within the bounds of discretion. To say the truth, in looking into the bottom of my heart, while at this moment I am writing about him, it seems to me, that he is my favourite child; his graceful person, his fine De Coverley face the image of his great uncle, his cheerful animated countenance, make him, in my eyes, singularly prepossessing, and I certainly should love him the best of the three, if I did not discover that the other two were equally engaging in their different ways, and equally entitled to their due share of my affections. At any rate, though I may be able to keep even the balance of favour, Richard is decidedly his mother's favourite; whether it is, that an eldest son has usually that prerogative, or because the jokes of her saucy son act as a sort of stimulant on

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the soporific nature of her own mind, and so relieve it from a kind of constitutional weight, I cannot tell; but certain it is, every thing he says and does is right in her eyes, and she seldom praises or rebukes her other children but through him. She says, Fanny writes a beautiful hand, almost as neat a one as Richard's;" but finds terrible faults with George's bow, "which will never be so graceful as Dick's." But, as I said before, why should I not make every body speak for themselves when I can? My wife shall show how great her affection is for her son, by sending you the copy of a letter she wrote him a few days ago, and if you knew Mrs De Coverley as well as I do, you would not think slightly of that feeling which could urge her to such an unwonted proceeding.

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DEAR DICK,-Mr Smith has just called to see if we have any thing to send you, and I take the opportunity of sending a dozen shirts I have been making for you, and as nobody is in the way to write, I must, as I want to know if the collars are made the proper height. You will be glad to hear I am beginning to like Bandyborough very well, I suppose, because I am getting used to it,-the reason, I dare say, why I liked Great Russel Street so much, which you and Fanny thought so dull. We are very lucky here in having an exceeding clever apothecary, who seems to know all our constitutions already as well as if he had attended us these ten years,--he advises your father, for the sake of his nerves, to get as much cheerful society as he can; and has kindly of fered to come and dine with us whenever he is not otherwise engaged; he also recommends your father to drink a few glasses of Madeira every day, which he says we can get particularly good of his father-in-law, a wine merchant in this place. Fanny, he thinks, requires constant exercise, recommends dancing and riding as best suited to her state of health, which, he says, if any thing, is too robust. As for me, he has ordered me to keep perfectly quiet, as exertion of every kind is very bad for me, and that whenever I feel inclined for a

nap after dinner, I should always indulge in it; " for nature," as he justly says, "points out what she requires:"-he also advises me in fine weather to take a little airing in the carriage, and he says his wife, a good kind of woman, though very lame, will be always so kind as to accompany me. Your aunt Eleanor and he are great friends, as he agrees perfectly with her in all her opinions, and they talk incessantly about the constitution; but whether they are talking about politics or medicine, I can't always make out;-poor thing, I am sorry she troubles herself so much about politics, for I can't see any good it can do.

Your father and sister always leave the room as soon as she begins, which is very tiresome to me. However, I am exceedingly glad Mr Scamony has ordered me to sleep after dinner, so now I need not keep awake to listen to her. I am quite tired with writing this long letter, so must conclude, your affectionate mother,

JOAN DE COVERLEY.

This letter reminds me that I must not forget, or overlook, a very conspicuous person in our family group-my sister Eleanor-a tall bony elderly lady, who having, once upon a time, passed three days in the same house with the celebrated Junius, who paid her, as she tells us, many compliments, has taken upon herself, from that circumstance, to be a furious politician, and decides and animadverts upon the conduct of every public character in Europe, as well as in England, as if she was the only person in the world who had common sense. Besides this, being several years older than myself, she exerted the prerogative that I observe most elder sisters exercise over their brothers, and used to tutor me so unmercifully when a boy, that she cannot always be brought to remember that I am now 59, and, as I hope, of mnature judgment. However, as I seldom listen to her politics, or reply to her sarcasms, we go on admirably, and my wife's good temper, and Fanny's good sense, keep all things in their equilibrium, and, to do her justice, she has many excellent qualities, and has, above all, that chief virtue in an aunt, of being blindly partial to her nephews and nieces. She declares

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