88 TRAVELS IN THE EAST INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 



duce is washed dowai their sides by the rains that 

 the vegetation is frequently destroyed for some dis- 

 tance below their summits. 



One of the great privileges of a residence in the 

 tropics is to enjoy the delicious fruits of those re- 

 gions in all their perfection. Of all those fruits, in 

 my opinion, the mangoBtin ought unquestionably 

 to be considered the first. This tree, a Garcinia^ is 

 about the size of a pear-tree. Its Malay name is 

 manggusta^ whence our own, but it is more gener- 

 ally known in the archij^elago by the Javanese name 

 manggis. It flourishes in most of the islands from 

 the south coast of Java to Mindanao, the southern- 

 most of the Philippines. On the continent it yields 

 well as far up the Peninsula of Malacca as Bankok, 

 in Siam, and in the interior to 16° N., but on the 

 coast of the Bay of Bengal only to 14° N. The at- 

 tempts to introduce it into India have failed, but the 

 fruit is sometimes sent from Singapore after it has 

 been carefully coated with wax to exclude the air. 

 In Ceylon they have only partially succeeded in cul- 

 tivating it. All the trials to raise it in the West 

 Indies have proved unsuccessful, so that this, the 

 best of all tropical fi'uits, is never seen on our conti- 

 nent. Its limited geographical range is the more 

 remarkable, for it is frequently seen flourishing in 

 the East Indian islands on all kinds of soils, and 

 there is reason to suppose that it has been introduced 

 into the Philippines within a comparatively late 

 period, for in 1685 Dampier did not notice it on 

 Mindanao. The fruit is of a spherical form, and a 

 reddish-brown color. The outer part is a thick, tough 



