6 GINGHAM. 



other places on the coast, abound also in the 

 Betel-nut.* 



Another error which was fallen into by not 

 being acquainted with the custom of the place, was 

 purchasing the nut by the pecul instead of the 

 laxar, by which much loss is sustained by the 

 buyer. The luxur or laxar is in weight one 

 pecul and thirty-five-hundredths of a pecul : it 

 consists of ten thousand nuts, and from ten to 

 twenty-five per cent., according to the bargain 

 previously made, is given over, for nuts which 

 may be rotten or otherwise damaged. 



Several vessels, the Eleanor, Helen, Dania, 

 (Denmark ship,) and Peru, were lying in Gingham 

 roads, for cargoes of Areka-nut. I took an oppor- 

 tunity of visiting the village of Gingham, proceed- 

 ing thither in the ship's boat. The coast to the 

 eastward still maintained the same picturesque 

 character as about Pedir, except perhaps in some 

 parts where it was more densely wooded with 

 cocoa-nut and other trees close to the beach. We • 

 passed a cluster of palm-leaved thatched, bam- 

 boo huts, which was the village of Ilbu. The 



* One of the merchants, a Moorman, named 3Iahomet 

 Monsour, engaged, if a ship was brought next season to 

 Sawang, (a village further to the eastward) to deliver on 

 board six thousand peculs of the Areka-nut in the space of 

 eight days. 



