40 LETTERS FROM JAMES MOTLEY, ESQ. 
are now brought to Singapore; it has become a manufactured sub- 
stance. A vast variety of its gum, at various prices, from three to 
thirty dollars a picul, is brought in by the natives. Some of these 
are deep red, some quite white, and many of them are hardly coherent, 
breaking down and crumbling between the fingers. These are cut 
and broken up, and cleared from the scraps of bark and wood which 
are generally found among tliem; they are then boiled in an iron pan 
with cocoa-nut oil, and stirred until thoroughly amalgamated; this 
* mixture is allowed to cool again, when it is broken up, and reboiled 
with more oil sometimes as often as four times, or until the mass 
aequires a certain tenacity. The good Gutta Percha, sliced into thin 
shavings, is then added in greater or less proportion, according to the 
quality of the basis, and the whole well mixed. "The Chinese who do 
this are very skilful, and manage to produce from a great variety of 
gums a very uniform article,—wonderfully so, when it is considered 
that the gum is bought by the merchants in very small quantities at a 
time, as the natives bring it in. Another feature in Singapore com- 
merce during the past two years, is the increase of export of Malacca 
canes; it has been this year to the amount of many millions—what 
can they all be used for? Hoping yet, in spite of many disappoint- 
ments, to be able in future to add some trifle to your Museum at Kew, 
which I long to see (when I left England it was hardly commenced), 
I remain, yours very truly,—J. M. 
—— I write rather tardily to thank you for the copies of what you printed 
in the ‘London Journal of Botany, about the Camphor-tree. It is 
- very singular that we should be in such ingorance of the plant which 
produces the Borneo Camphor, an article of commerce so long and well 
known, to the Dutch, at least, from whose Sumatran possessions it is 
mainly obtained. I am not at all surprised at Camoens’ mention of it, 
however, because he wrote the Lusiad at Macao, and at that time, 
towards the latter part of the sixteenth century, there was a very con- 
siderable trade between that port and the north and west coast of 
Borneo, carried on not only by Chinese junks, which were even built in 
_ the river of Borneo Proper, but also by armed Portuguese vessels, then 
the two most powerful states on this coast. Brune and Sucudana had 
. regular treaties with Portugal, and in 1602 the Portuguese resident, 
