118 ODOEOGKAPHIA. 



are spread on mats for four or five hours to dry. The uext opera- 

 tion is to nip off the short stalks. This is done by women sittino- 

 in the house. Each woman has a large pair of English scissors. 

 She squats on the floor and rests her right hand, which holds the 

 scissors, on the floor, and feeds the scissors with her left hand. 

 This work is done at an astonishing pace. The stalk is very small 

 and care must be taken to cut it off without injury to the 

 cardamom itself. I saw an old woman nip 90 cardamoms in one 

 minute. This done, the sorting begins. The small, ill-shapen 

 cardomoms are separated, and only the well-rounded ones packed 

 for export to distant markets. A woman sorts a " man " ijer 

 diem (26 lbs.). Eeturning now to the first process of washing. 

 The mixture in the tub, after the first basketful has been baled 

 out, is replenished by two or three quarts of the well-water and a 

 second basketful washed. The tub is then emptied and a fresh 

 mixture made. The mixture for the second washing also does duty 

 for two basketfuls. 



" Besides this bleaching process, cardamoms are now starched. 

 Starching was first introduced at Sirsi, where bleachers had 

 recourse to it as they had to compete with the bleachers at 

 Haveri, who were experts in the art of bleaching and had 

 established their fame as such. The starched cardamoms look 

 whiter than the ordinary bleached ones of Haveri, and the 

 bleachers of Haveri have now taken to starching. The starch is 

 prepared by pounding together rice, wheat and country soap with 

 butter-rnilk. The paste is dissolved in a sufficient quantity of 

 water, and the solution sprinkled over the cardamoms to be 

 starched as they are being rubbed by the hand." 



As met with in commerce the Malabar cardamom is an ovate- 

 oblong, obtusely triangular capsule, of variable size, coriaceous, 

 ribbed, bluntly triangular, grey or brownish-yellow, opening 

 longitudinally by three valves and containing five or six seeds in 

 each of its three compartments. The shrivelled insipid pericarp is 

 striated lengthways. The seeds are reddish-brown, wrinkled, 

 obtusely wedge-shaped and angular externally, somewhat re- 

 sembling the dark sort of cochineal ; they have a pleasantly 

 aromatic odour and agreeable taste. Internally they are whitish. 

 Good cardamom fruits should be plump and heavy, and should 

 contain seeds to the extent of three-fourths of their weight. 



