VIII 



PEPPERS 293 



As time went on, Malacca became a great emporium 

 for produce of the eastern islands, notably for pepper, 

 chiefly from Sumatra and Java, and was thence shipped 

 to Europe. Very little, however, seems to have been 

 actually cultivated at Malacca itself. 



In 1802, pepper was the staple production of 

 Penang, probably introduced from Sumatra shortly after 

 the foundation of the settlement by Captain Light. An 

 account of its cultivation in that year was published by 

 Sir William Hunter in the Asiatic Researches, vol. ix., 

 1809. The average quantity produced annually was 

 4,000,000 Ibs., but before 1810 it had decreased to 

 2,500,000 Ibs. The price fell at length to 3 and 3^ 

 dollars a picul, with occasional rises, and the cultivation 

 was gradually abandoned. The total produce in 

 1836 did not exceed 2,000 piculs. In 1818 there 

 remained on the island 1,480,265 vines in bearing, and 

 the average annual value of exports from Penang, 

 cultivated there, and exported from the surrounding 

 countries, was 106,870 Singapore dollars. 



The cultivation does not seem ever to have again 

 assumed large proportions, and the extensive develop- 

 ment of pepper planting in Singapore, soon after its 

 founding, probably restrained that of Penang. 



As in the rest of the peninsula, the cultivation was 

 almost entirely in the hands of the Chinese, though, 

 especially in Province Wellesley, there was a good deal 

 of cultivation by immigrant Achinese. 



Europeans have seldom attempted the cultivation, 

 but about 1830, J. J. Thomson records an extensive 

 area under pepper by a European gentleman in Malacca 

 (Logans Journal, iv., 1837). This, however, proved a 

 failure. Pepper of a very high -class quality was long 

 produced at Kamuning estate in Perak, but not 

 abundantly. 



In Singapore pepper cultivation seems to have been 

 first started by an energetic Chinaman in 1825, who, as 

 has usually been done, combined this cultivation with 

 that of gambir. Pepper was then selling at $1*50 a 



