212 FLORA VITIENSIS. 
blocks yielded upwards of 20,000 impressions without being worn out. The dark-coloured wood, five 
inches in diameter, grown on rocky soil, is the best for the engraver’s purpose. This has not been tried 
in England, as its price was thought to be.too high; but on comparing it with box-wood, which sells in 
England for one penny the square inch, it was found to be cheaper in India than box-wood in England. 
Santalum album, and a marked variety of inferior quality, known as myrtifolium, grows on the moun- 
tains of continental India and the Indian Archipelago, Mysore, Malabar, and Canara being the principal 
districts. The tree is usually twenty-five feet high, and when allowed to attain a greater height its trunk 
is generally found rotten at the core. The natives have an idea that the trees ought to be felled in the 
wane of the moon,—an idea Europeans are wont to laugh at, though they might look a little more closely 
into the matter before doing so. I remember that in tropical America I often heard the wood-cutters 
declare it to be absolute folly to fell timber whilst the moon was on the increase, as it was sure to become 
rotten very soon, being then in full sap. The bark of the sandal-tree should be taken off immediately, 
and the trunks cut into billets two feet long. These should be buried in a piece of dry ground for 
two months, during which time the white ants will eat away all the outer wood, without touching the 
seart, constituting the sandal of commerce ; the billets ought then to be taken up and smoothed, and, ac- 
cording to their size, sorted into three kinds. The deeper the colour, the stronger is the perfume; and 
hence the merchants sometimes divide sandal into red, yellow, and white; but these are all various shades 
of the same colour, and do not arise from any different species in the tree. The nearer the root, in gene- 
ral, the stronger is the perfume ; and care should be taken, by removing the earth, to cut as low as possible, 
The billets next to the root, when this has been done, are commonly called root sandal. In smoothing the 
billets, chips of the sandal are, of course, cut off; so are also fragments in squaring their ends, both of 
which, with the smaller assortment of billets, answer best for the Arabian markets; and from them the 
essential oil is distilled, so much esteemed in Turkey. The larger billets are sent to China, and the 
middle-sized ones used in India. When thus sorted and prepared, the sandal, at least three or four 
months before it is sold, ought to be shut up from the rain and wind, in a close warehouse ; and the longer 
it is kept, with such precautions, the better, its weight diminishing more than its smell. Prepared in this 
a i rarely splits or warps—accidents which render it unfit for many of the purposes to which it is 
applied. 
Until the middle of the last century sandal was exclusively obtained from the East Indies; but after 
Captain Cook and his successors had made Europeans familiar with the chief geographical features of the 
South Sea, enterprising traders went in search of the wood amongst the innumerable islands scattered over the 
broad Pacific like stars on the firmament. One of the first groups visited, chiefly by vessels from Manilla, 
was Viti. The sandal-wood of that group, confined to Bua Bay on Vanua Levu, and derived from Santalum 
Fasi, a middle-sized tree, with lanceolate leaves, white ultimately brown flowers, and a fruit resembling 
a black currant, had long been famous in those waters, and induced the Tongans to undertake regular 
trading voyages to the place where it grew, and even attempt to transplant the tree to Tonga, where, 
though it vegetated, the wood was found to be almost without scent. We are indebted to Mariner for an 
insight into this early intercourse.* He tells us of a Tongan chief who had been abroad for fourteen 
years, and originally set out on a sandal-wood expedition to Fiji. Before iron tools and implements came 
in use, the Tonguese paid in bark-cloth, the sting of a fish used for spears, sail-mats, plaits, and a rare orna- 
mental shell peculiar to Vavau. They passed on portions of the wood to the Samoans, who, in common 
with themselves and the Fijians, grated the sandal-wood on the mushroom coral (Fungia) and used it for 
perfuming the cocoa-nut oil, so extensively applied by Polynesians for greasing their naked bodies. The 
white traders who first ventured to Fiji seem to have proceeded with great caution, and never commenced 
transacting business until chiefs of rank had been placed on board as hostages. Notwithstanding, several 
collisions between natives and whites are recorded. So great was the demand for the wood in both the 
Chinese and -Polynesian markets that, about 1816, there was searcely enough left for home consumption. 
In 1840 the United States Exploring Expedition with difficulty obtained a few specimens for the her- 
barium, and to save the tree from utter extinction the Rev. Mr. Williams planted one in the gardens of 
the Bua mission station, which enabled me to describe it botanically. At present fancy prices are readily 
given by the Vitians for the little sandal-wood now and then turning up; and a log about six feet long, 
presented to me in 1860, and now in the Kew Museum, was thought a valuable gift by my native 
attendants.T 
: About 1778 the attention of the commercial world was first drawn to the existence of sandal-wood in 
the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands; and a Captain Kendrick, of a Boston brig, is known to have been the 
first who left two men on Kauai to contract for several cargoes. The natives term it “Lau ala” (i.e. fra- 
grant wood) or Ilialii, and distinguish two different kinds—the Lau keokeo or white, and the Lau hulahula 
* J. Martin, * Account of the Natives of the Tonga Islands,’ pp. 319, 833. London, 1817. 
T Seemann, ‘ Viti,’ p. 343. London, 1862. And in Correspondence relating to Fiji Islands, ordered 
by the House of Commons to be printed. a 
