AntiL, 1848. CULTIVATION OF PAWN. 90 



I had just got into bed at night, when the bearers 

 arrived ; so bidding a hurried adieu to my kind host, I 

 proceeded onwards. 



April 12. — I awoke at 4 a.m., and found my palkee 

 on the ground, and the bearers coolly smoking their 

 hookahs under a tree (it was raining hard) : they had 

 carried me the length of their stage, twelve miles, and there 

 were no others to take me on. I had paid twenty-four 

 pounds for my dawk, from Caragola to the hills, to which 

 I had been obliged to add a handsome douceur ; so I 

 lost all patience. After waiting and entreating during 

 several hours, I found the head-man of a neighbouring 

 village, and by a further disbursement induced six out 

 of the twelve bearers to carry the empty palkee, whilst 

 I should walk to the next stage ; or till we should meet 

 some others. They agreed, and cutting the thick and 

 spongy sheaths of the banana, used them for shoulder- 

 pads : they also wrapped them round the palkee-poles, 

 to ease their aching clavicles. Walking along I picked 

 up a few plants, and fourteen miles further on came again 

 to the banks of the Mahanuddee, whose bed was strewn 

 with pebbles and small boulders, brought thus far from 

 the mountains (about thirty miles distant). Here, again, 

 I had to apply to the head-man of a village, and pay for 

 bearers to take me to Titalya, the next stage (fourteen 

 miles). Some curious long low sheds puzzled me very 

 much, and on examining them they proved to be for the 

 growth of Pawn or Betel-pepper, another indication of the 

 moisture of the climate. These sheds are twenty to fifty yards 

 long, eight or twelve or so broad, and scarcely five high; they 

 are made of bamboo, wattled all round and over the top. 

 Slender rods are placed a few feet apart, inside, up which 

 the Pepper Vines climb, and quickly fill the place with their 



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