FLORULA HONGKONGENSIS. ie v 
sprung up, grown, and borne fruit. Not before the rice is ripe and 
gathered in do they think it right to bury the corpse, and it is ac- 
tually interred with the ears of the rice that was sown on the day of 
the decease. Thus the burial takes place after five or six months. 
(The remarkable ceremonies of such a funeral are elsewhere described 
by Dr. Junghuhn.) The corpse, like the rice-grain six months before, 
is then committed to-the earth ; and thus the hope is emblematically 
expressed, that, as a new life arises from the seed, another life shall 
begin for man after his death. 
During the period previous to interment, the corpses are preserved 
in wooden coffins within the houses, the women wailing day and night. 
Trunks of Durio Zibethinus (the Durian) are hollowed out to contain 
the bodies. "They are carved with much art, and have at the under 
part small apertures, through which the fluids may escape. The corpses 
contained in these coffins are not only spread over with pounded cam- 
phor, but entirely covered with it, in such a manner that all the space 
between the coflin and the body is filled with it. This is the only 
means known to the inhabitants of the Batta-lands of preserving the 
bodies of their kings, without smell or corruption, during so many 
months, in the humid air of such a hot climate. Dr. Junghuhn saw a 
corpse which had been preserved in this manner during four months, 
and which was shrunk up like a mummy, and emitted no smell but the 
penetrating odour of the camphor. 
In this way an immense quantity of camphor (a: quarter to half a 
quintal) is consumed, for the purchase of which the family of the de- 
ceased king must make the greatest sacrifice, and often sell all their 
cattle. Every village has such a rajah. = 
FLoRuLA HONGKONGENSIS: an Enumeration of the Plants collected 
in the Island of Hong-Kong, by Major J. G. Champion, 954% Reg., 
the delerminations revised and the new species described by GEORGE — 
BENTHAM, Esa. plc 
(Continued from p. 50.) 
LEGUMINOSJE (continued). : 
gs 25. Millettia speciosa, Champ., sp. n.; scandens, ramulis petiolis in- 
florescentiaque cano-tomentosis, foliolis 9-13 oblongis puberulis 
VOL. IV. L 
