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Updated: May 7, 2025
Indeed, it is a curious fact, that in all parts of the world some stimulating vegetable is used by the human race. Tea in China; the betel-leaf, and the nut of the areca palm, among the Southern Asiatics; the poppy in the East; with tobacco, and many like things, in other countries. But the coca not only supplies the Indian with a solace to his cares, it forms the chief article of his food.
No one speaks, unless to exchange a languid compliment with the Chief. Presently essence of roses and a compound of areca nut and lime are circulated, then a huge silver pipe is brought in, the Chief takes three long pulls, the thakores on the carpet each take a pull, and the levée breaks up amid profound salaams. After this dinner, opium, and sleep.
Each cocoanut-tree produces on an average from fifty to a hundred full and perfect nuts, yielding about a score the first year of its coming into bearing. The cocoanut palm is the most common and most valuable of this family of trees, and next to it is the areca.
The Kling squatted upon his heels, chewing areca nut, and spitting long distances before him. The child also squatted upon the grass by the roadside, very listless. The Kling did not move as Mercier approached, clapping in his sandals. But the child moved and cast upon him a luminous, frightened gaze, and then regarded him fixedly. Therefore Mercier sat down by the child, and noted her.
For the supply of luxury, it has betel, areca, tobacco, cotton, indigo, and a small quantity of cinnamon, which seems to be planted here only for curiosity; and indeed we doubted whether it was the genuine plant, knowing that the Dutch are very careful not to trust the spices out of their proper islands.
In the first place, the areca nut palm is almost, if not altogether, the most graceful of all its graceful tribe. Unlike the coconut, it grows as erect as a flagstaff, and the effect of this is increased by its extreme slenderness, for though it may attain a height of fifty feet, its diameter scarcely exceeds six inches.
All the Oriental palms, as the cocoa-nut, the areca, the sago, &c., abound here. The larger grasses, as the bamboo, the canna, the nardus, assume a stately growth, and thrive in peculiar luxuriance. Pepper is found wild everywhere, and largely cultivated about Benjarmasing and the districts of Borneo Proper. The laurus cinnamomum and cassia odoriferata are produced in abundance about Kimanis.
Every Singhalese carries in his waist-cloth a box containing some nuts of the areca and a few fresh leaves of the betel pepper, as also a smaller box to hold the chunam or lime. The mode of taking it is to scrape down the nut, and to roll it up with some lime in a betel leaf.
The South Americans chew the cocoa and mambee, and the eastern people the betel and areca, or, as they are called in the Malay language, sirih and pinang.
The natives ascribe intoxicating properties to the cakes made from this flour; but I have certainly eaten a fair allowance at one time, and I cannot say that I had the least sensation of elevation. The nut, which is something similar to the areca in size, is nearly white when divested of its outer husk, and this is soaked for about twenty-four hours in water.
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