GAMBIER AND TOBACCO. 57 



4,000 feet; the berries produced at this height 

 being of much finer quality and richer flavour than 

 any others. 



Gambier (Uncaria) is not cultivated in the island, 

 though found wild in many parts of it : that used by 

 the Malays is brought from Singapore, the Dyaks con- 

 tenting themselves with chewing the leaves together 

 with their Sirih, &c. The gambier plantations in 

 Singapore are said so much to exhaust the land, that 

 nothing can be grown on their site for many years 

 after they are abandoned. 



Tobacco is grown in small quantities by the Dyaks 

 and people of Bruni; but they are unskilful in its 

 manufacture, though the flavour of that of Bruni is 

 much esteemed by Europeans. Under skilful ma- 

 nagement, and by introducing a better kind if the one 

 now known should not prove a good one it might 

 become as profitable to the island as it now is 

 to the neighbouring ones of the Philippines, Java, 

 and Bali. The Dyaks might be more readily induced 

 to cultivate this plant, the nature of which they know, 

 than indigo and other plants which are strange to 

 them. 



Besides the articles above imperfectly enumerated, 

 many others, it is highly probable, might be intro- 

 duced with advantage. The success attending the 

 partial cultivation of the spices of Amboyna, and the 

 Banda islands, has been already mentioned, and it is 

 probable that they may be cultivated at so cheap a 

 rate, as to be able to compete with the productions of 

 their native islands, even if all restrictions on the com- 



