EDIBLE SWALLOW NESTS. 59 



fineness. Those of the best sort arc 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, 

 particularly 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 it ; 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, 

 therefore, much used in violent fevers; they are 

 also prescribed, and with great success, in cases of 

 hoarseness and sore throats. They are, however, 



