386 RUBIACEiE. 



though they chew its leaves instead of Pinang, it must not be supposed 

 that it is this plant from which the lozenges Gatta are compounded, for 

 that indeed is quite different. 



Thus, if we may credit Rumphius, it would seem that the important 

 manufacture of gambler had no existence at the commencement of the 

 last century. As to " Gatta Gambir" his statements are scarcely in 

 accord with those of more recent writers. We may however remark 

 that that name is very like the Tamil Katta Kdrtibu, signifying Catechu, 

 which drug is sometimes made into little round cakes, and was certainly 

 a large export from India to Malacca and China as early as the 16th 

 century (p. 241). 



That gambler was unknown to Europeans long after the time of 

 Rumphius, is evident from other facts, Stevens, a merchant of Bombay, 

 in his Compleat Guide to the East hidia Trade, published in 1766, 

 quotes the prices of goods at Malacca, but makes no allusion to gambler. 

 Nor is there any reference to it in Savary's Dictionnaire de Commerce 

 (ed. of 1750), in which Malacca is mentioned as the great entrepot of 

 the trade of India with that of China and Japan. 



The first account of gambler known to us, was communicated to the 

 Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences in 1780, by a Dutch trader named 

 Couperus. This person narrates^ how the plant was introduced into 

 Malacca from Pontjan in 1758, and how gambler is made from its 

 leaves; and names several sorts of the drug and their prices. 



In 1807, a description of "the drug called Gutta Gambeer," and 

 of the tree from which it is made, was presented to the Linnean Society 

 of London,^ The writer, William Hunter, well known for scientific 

 observations in connection with India, states that the substance is 

 made chiefly at Malacca, Siak and Rhio, that it is in the form of small 

 squares, or little round cakes almost perfectly white, and that the finer 

 sorts are used for chewing with betel leaf in the same manner as 

 catechu, while the coarser are shipped to Batavia and China for use in 

 tanning and dyeing. 



Manufacture — The gambler plant is cultivated in plantations. 

 These were commenced in 1819 in Singapore, where there were at one 

 time 800 plantations ; but owing to scarcity of fuel, without an abun- 

 dant supply of which the manufacture is impossible, and dearness of 

 labour, gambler-planting was in 1866 fast disappearing from the island.^ 

 The official Blue Book, printed at Singapore in 1872, reports it as "m.uch 

 increased" It is largely pursued on the mainland (Johore), and in the 

 islands of the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago, lying south-east of Singapore, 

 On the island of Bintang, the most northerly of the group, there were 

 about 1,250 gambier-plantations in 1854, 



The plantations are often formed in clearings of the jungle, where 

 they last for a few years and are then abandoned,^ owing to the im- 

 poverishment of the soil and the irrepressible growth of the lalang 

 grass (Imjperata Koenigii P. de B,), which is more difficult to eradicate 

 than even primaeval jungle. It has been found profitable to combine 



^ Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Ge- * Collingwood, Journ. of Linn. Soc.,'Rot., 



nootschap, ii, (derde druk) 217-234, x, (1869) 52, 



2 Linn. Trans, ix. (1808) 218-224, * This abuse of land has been repressed 



in Singapore. 



