132 NUTRITIVE PLANTS, 



Some of the berries neither change red nor black, but continue 

 white : these are used in medicine, and sold at double the price of 

 the other. But the inhabitants, finding that foreigners want theni 

 for the same use, have discovered a way of whitening the others, by 

 taking them while they are red, and washing off the red skin with 

 water and sand, so that nothing remains but the heart of the pepper, 

 which is white. 



Pepper thrives in almost every soil between the two extremes 

 which prevail on this island, the sandy and the yellow clay. In the 

 pepper-gardens the ground is marked out into regular squares of 

 six feet, which is the usual distance allowed to the plants, of which 

 there are usually a thousand in each garden. The English East 

 India Company engross the trade of this article ; their servants, and 

 the merchants under their- protection, being free to deal in every 

 other commodity the country affords. The price for many years 

 paid for the pepper was ten Spanish dollars, or fifty shillings, per 

 bakar of five hundred weight ; by a late resolution of the company, 

 it was afterwards increased to fifteen dollars, and the present open- 

 ing with the continent will perhaps produce another advance. 



On the island of Borneo there are three sorts of black pepper; 

 the first, called molucca, or lout pepper, is the best ; the second 

 named caytonsjee-pepper, is a middling sort ; and the third, and 

 worst sort, is negaree-pepper, of which they have the greatest 

 quantity, but it is small, hollow, light, and usually full of dust; it 

 should therefore be bought by weight, and not by measure. Here 

 is also white pepper, which is sold at double the price of the black. 



The cultivation of the pepper gardens is chiefly the employment 

 of the Chinese who are settled in the country. They do not let 

 the vine which bears the pepper twist round a chinkareen-tree, as is 

 the custom at Sumatra, but drive a pole, or rather strong post, into 

 the ground, so that the vine is not robbed of its nourishment. For- 

 rest asserts, that he has counted seventy and even seventy-five corns 

 of pepper growing upon one stalk, which is more than is produced 

 at Sumatra. 



The island of Java originally produced no spice but pepper, 

 which is now sent thence to Europe in great quantities ; but its 

 consumption on the island is very inconsiderable, the inhabitants 

 preferring capsicum, or as it is called in Europe, cayan-pepper. 



On the island of Madagascar, pepper grows in small quantities, 



