72V SUMATItA. 135 



Trang, the chief centre of the pepper and dammar trade, where 

 there was more high land and virgin forest. From this viilago 

 alone in the height of the pepper season more than fifty pony 

 loads go every week to the coast, each carrying IJ piculs, 

 or 219 Amsterdam ponnds weight. It is rare that single 

 loads are sent down to the coast, generally a small troop goes to- 

 gether, and the village square presents rather an exciting scene 

 in the early morning of a despatch of cargo. The strong but 

 wofully skinny creatures have, like their masters, little relish 

 for hard woYk, and conduct themselves in the most refractory 

 manner possible— objecting first- of all to be caught, then 

 resenting with teeth and limbs the impost of pack-saddle and 

 bags. When, however, the last cord has been adjusted, after 

 many imprecations and Allah-il-Allahs from the pack-master, 

 they give in to the inevitable with perfect grace, marching 

 off as docilely as possible generally behind a belled leader, 

 and thereafter require little or no attention. 



The price obtained for this amount of pepper at the coast 

 amounts to about £118, no mean amount per week (during 

 the season) for a small village, whose only outlay consists in 

 the cost of food and the Government tax of one guilder per 

 head. It takes seven or eight years for a new pepper garden 

 to reach maturity, but when it is in full bearing, each shrub 

 will yield as much as 10s. 8i. worth of fruit in a season. 



The other great industry of the place is dammar collecting. 

 This substance, as is well known, is the resin which exudes 

 from notches made in various species of coniferous and 

 dipterocarpous trees. Some of these, especially of the latter 

 family, are immense giants, out of whose stem— which often 

 reaches 100 feet before branching— the native cuts large 

 notches, at intervals of a few feet, up to a height of some 

 forty or fifty feet from the ground. The tree is then left for 

 three or four months, when, if it be a very healthy one, suf- 

 ficient dammar will have exuded to make it worth collecting ; 

 the yield may then be as much as ninety-four Amsterdam 

 pounds. Most trees, however, exude a far less quantity and 

 require a longer time. 



The damar attam (from the B>fea drijohalanoides and other 

 Dipterocarpeie, and not from the Dammara (Conifers) ), a beau- 

 tiful clear glass-like substance— the " eye dammar," as the 



