256 EDIBLE SWALLOW NESTS. 



bird, or made thicker, until it is entirely deserted by her, 

 when it becomes dry or hairy in the inside. When the nests 

 have been collected, no further trouble is necessary than to 

 dry and clean them ; after which they are put in baskets, and 

 sold to the Chinese. The price of them depends on their 

 whiteness and fineness. Those of the best sort are exceedingly 

 scarce. They are sold at the rate of from eight to fourteen 

 hundred rix-dollars per one hundred and twenty-five pounds, 

 which amounts in our money to the sum of from thirty to 

 forty-two shillings per pound. This high price and the great 

 avarice of the Chinese, give rise to much dishonesty and 

 thieving. The two places above mentioned, were, about fifty 

 years ago, sold by auction by the Dutch East India Company, 

 to the highest bidder, who received for them above twenty 

 thousand pounds more than they expected, which proves the 

 value and quantity of these singular productions. About 

 two thousand five hundred pounds' weight of these nests 

 are collected every year in the island of Java, which, at an 

 average of the above prices, amounts to about five thousand 

 pounds a-year. 



Some of these bird-caverns are dreadfully exposed, par- 

 ticularly a few situated on the coast ; these are washed by 

 the sea, which forces its way so deep into the latter, that fish 

 may be caught in them ; but on account of the steepness of the 

 rocks, the nests can only be collected at the most imminent 

 risk. The young birds are eaten, both by the Javanese and 

 the Europeans in India ; but they are considered to be very 

 heating, and are, moreover, difficult to procure. The nests, 

 on the other hand, when they have been boiled to a kind of 

 slimy sort of soup, exposed in the night-time to the dew, and 

 mixed with sugar, are exceedingly cooling, and they are there- 

 fore much used in violent fevers ; they are also prescribed, 

 and with great success, in cases of hoarseness and sore 

 throats. They are, however, not supposed to be possessed of 

 any very superior medical qualities, and are chiefly sold as 

 articles of luxury, and ornaments for the tables of the rich 

 Chinese. Their mode of using them is to put them, after 

 being well soaked and cleaned, along with a fat capon or 



