THE DURIAN. 91 



selves are intensely bitter. Tlie natives, however, in- 

 variably prefer the durian to all other fi'uits. The 

 Durio zihethinus is a very large tree. Its fruit is 

 spherical in form, six or eight inches in diameter, and 

 generally covered with many sharply-pointed tuber- 

 cles. This exterior is a hard shell. Within it is 

 divided into several parts. On breaking the shell, a 

 seed, as large as a chestnut, is foimd in each division, 

 surrounded by a pale-yellow substance of the con- 

 sistency of thick cream, and having an odor of putrid 

 animal matter, so strong that a single fruit is enough 

 to infect the air in a large house. In the season for 

 this fruit the whole atmosphere in the native villages 

 is filled with this detestable odor. The taste of this 

 soft, salvy, half-clotted substance is well described by 

 Mr. Crawfurd as like " fresh cream and filberts." It 

 seems paradoxical to state that the same substance 

 may violate a man's sense of smell, and yet gratify 

 his sense of taste at the same time, but the natives 

 certainly are most passionately fond of it, and I once 

 met a foreigner who assured me that when he had 

 once smelled this fruit he could never be satisfied till 

 he had eaten some of it. Its simple odor is generally 

 quite enough for all Europeans. It thrives well in 

 Sumatra, Java, the Spice Islands, and Celebes, and is 

 found as far north as Mindanao. On the continent 

 forests of it exist on the Malay Peninsula, and it is 

 successfully raised as far north in Siam as the thir- 

 teenth or fourteenth parallel. On the coast of the 

 Bay of Bengal it is grown as far north as Tenasserim, 

 in Lat. 14° N. It flourishes well on all the kinds of 

 soils in this area, but all attempts have fiiiled to in- 



