FRUIT CULTURE IN THE ALPS MARITIME. 935 



place of oak bark, ami " oak- tanned leather still commands the highest 

 price in the market. I do not know the present prices of oak bark in 

 the United States whether 100 kilograms in a broken state ready to be 

 ground, and bought where grown, would be^dear at 7J guilders ($3) ; 

 but if the price of it should be the same as of mangosteen shells bought 

 out here for the same price, the prices of both the same there and here- 

 the mangosteen shells having one-sixth more tannic properties would 

 be more valuable the difference would more than pay for the freight, 

 besides proving a valuable article of freight for our ships, being easily 

 shipped, and, owing to the hardness of the shell, not liable to spoil or 

 to suffer from sea- water, except after long submersion. 



That mangosteen shells contain much tannin and are a very strong 

 astringent I knew long ago. The Malays when they want to check 

 bowel complaints of serious character grate or cut fine the shells, make 

 tea of the same, apd use it with good results. This is well known here. 

 About ten years ago an eminent Austrian naturalist and physician, 

 sent by his government to the Indo-Malayan Archipelago on a scientific 

 tour of exploration, had his attention drawn to the shell of the man- 

 gosteen fruit as a powerful astringent, and its common use among the 

 natives as an antidote against the diseases mentioned. It would seem 

 that after his return to Vienna the imperial family read his report, and 

 noted the medical value of the mangosteen shell, for about six years 

 ago, when cases of Asiatic cholera had occurred in Austria, the Austrian 

 consul here, who was then my near neighbor, was written to by request 

 of Her Majesty the Empress to cause a quantity of mangosteen shells 

 to be procured, and to ship them with dispatch to Vienna, where it was 

 believed they would answer for checking cholera, in case the latter 

 should make progress. 



To order mangosteen shells from here for the cure of cholera was a 

 mistake ; for no one here over heard that they had been used for that 

 purpose. Still, as a remedy for dysentery, if taken immediately on 

 being attacked, the astringent is very effective. 



THE MANGOSTEEN FRUITS. 



The mangosteeu is beyond any doubt the choicest, most refreshing, 

 and wholesome fruit in this part of the world, and is found throughout 

 the whole Indo-Malayan Archipelago, and in New Guinea, say between 

 the twelfth degrees north and south latitudes. Strange to say, it does 

 not thrive well, if at all, in other tropical countries within the same de- 

 grees of latitude. In Siam and in French Cochin China there are large 

 orchards of it ; also on the Malayan peninsula, wherever human habita- 

 tions are found. It is equally at home, and plenty, on the large and 

 small Sunda Islands, in the Moluccas, and a naturalist told me that he 

 found them growing plentifully in the forests of New Guinea. On the 

 peninsula of Malacca, in Sumatra, and Borneo, large groves of them in 

 a wild state can be found, generally near the banks of rivers arid creeks, 

 15GA 35 



