Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
The betel and areca, which are here called siri and pinang, and chewed by both sexes and every rank in amazing quantities, are all grown by these Indians: Lime is also mixed with these roots here as it is in Savu, but it is less pernicious to the teeth, because it is first slaked, and, besides the lime, a substance called gambir, which is brought from the continent of India; the better sort of women also add cardamum, and many other aromatics, to give the breath an agreeable smell.
Above the rapids the Malays plant enough gambir to supply the wants of the whole betel-chewing population of Pahang, and, as the sale of this commodity wins them a few dollars annually, they are too indolent to plant their own rice.
From Musi they send likewise sulphur, alum, arsenic, and tobacco. Dragons-blood and gambir are also the produce of the country. These interior parts are divided into provinces, each of which is assigned as a fief or government to one of the royal family or of the nobles, who commit the management to deputies and give themselves little concern about the treatment of their subjects.
The trade is chiefly carried on by Kling vessels, as they are called, from the coast of Coromandel, which supply cargoes of piece-goods, and also raw silk, opium, and other articles, which they provide at Pinang or Malacca; in return for which they receive gold, wax, sago, salted fish, and fish-roes, elephants' teeth, gambir, camphor, rattans, and other canes.
Pepper and gambir plantations are also among the "sights" of Singapore. The pepper-tree is a small bush-like plant, which, when carefully trained, springs to a height of eighteen feet. The pepper-pods grow in small clusters, and change from red to green, and then to black. White pepper is nothing more than the black pepper blanched by frequent steeping in sea-water.
I was told that they belonged to the boa species. After having proceeded eight English miles in four hours, we left the boats, and following a narrow footpath, soon reached a number of plots of ground, cleared from trees, and planted with pepper and gambir.
The greater part of the inhabitants of Singapore are Chinese, many of whom are very rich, and all the villages about are almost entirely of Chinese, who cultivate pepper and gambir. Some of the English merchants here have splendid country houses. I dined with one to whom I brought an introduction. His house was most elegant, and full of magnificent Chinese and Japanese furniture.
My hosts were forming a pepper and gambir plantation, and in the immediate neighbourhood were extensive tin-washings, employing over a thousand Chinese. The tin is obtained in the form of black grains from beds of quartzose sand, and is melted into ingots in rude clay furnaces.
Formerly a sharp stake was stuck erect in the bottom; but after an unfortunate traveller had been killed by falling on one, its use was forbidden. There are always a few tigers roaming about Singapore, and they kill on an average a Chinaman every day, principally those who work in the gambir plantations, which are always made in newly-cleared jungle.
The Wanumbai people seemed very sorry at my departure; and well they might be, for the shells and insects they picked up on the way to and from their plantations, and the birds the little boys shot with their bows and arrows, kept them all well supplied with tobacco and gambir, besides enabling them to accumulate a stock of beads and coppers for future expenses.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking