180 PLANTATIONS. 



We often emerged from the pathways leading 

 through a wild country, upon neat cottages, sur- 

 rounded by plantations, inhabited and cultivated 

 by that industrious class of people, the Chinese. 

 A primary object of cultivation, I observed, was 

 the Gambir-shrub,* and the pepper-vine : the 

 former was cultivated and exported to a much 

 greater extent, until the Dutch government, by 

 heavy duties, prohibited its introduction into 

 Java, in order to encourage the cultivation and 

 exportation of it from their own settlement at 

 Rhio. Vegetables of different kinds, the sugar- 

 cane, &c. are also cultivated for the supply of 

 the Singapore market. 



The situations selected by the Chinese in this 

 undulating country, for their farms and planta- 

 tions were upon, or close to the sloping hills ; 

 and these places are selected for the Gambir and 

 pepper plantations, the lower land proving too 

 swampy. The pepper harvest had commenced, 

 and the vines had the appearance of being- 

 very productive this season, being covered with 

 a profusion of clusters of the pepper-berries, 



* The Gambir extract has been sent to England to be 

 tried as a mordant for dying, or to be used in the tanning of 

 leather, the extract having been found to contain a very 

 large proportion of tannin. I know not what may have been 

 the result of the experiment. 



