EXPEDITION TO MOLUCCA ISLANDS. 63 



mate being very favourable to its growth, but no more is grown 

 than is used as a common vegetable, the manufacture of that arti- 

 cle having been hitherto prohibited. Salt too might, with very 

 little attention and care, be made in quantity, on the swamps quite 

 close to the town, but Mr. Couterus says they are not salt enough 

 for the purpose ; the truth of which I can scarce credit, as they are 

 subject to be overflowed by the tides, and have no fresh water to 

 communicate with them. There was, some years ago, a very good 

 manufacture of gambier here, which exported nearly 40,000 pikuls 

 annually ; but about 9 years ago, in the war with the Malays, the 

 gardens were cut down, and the manufacture destroyed. Since 

 then there is but a very small quantity made here, and Ehio is 

 now the chief place where it is manufactured. Gambier is a sub- 

 stance of a waxy consistence, and a light yellowish brown colour, 

 formed by the decoction of the leaves of the shrub into Avhich a 

 small quantity of rice flour is thrown, to make it more firm and 

 solid. It is of an acrid bitter taste, and is eaten with betel by all 

 the Malays ; it leaves an agreeable sweetness on the palate. I am 

 told it only differs from a similar substance made use of on the 

 coast of Coromandel in the same way, imported from regue, called 

 Cotchundy, by the admixture of the rice flour, which renders it 

 of a better consistence and more easily packed and transported, 

 and less liable to run in hot weather. This article was the only 

 manufacture in Malacca, that I can learn, and with canes, dammar, 

 betelnuts, and gold dust from Mount Ophir. about 26 miles inland, 

 constituted the only natural exports ; and now that the gardens 

 have been destroyed, and the manufacture transferred to Ehio, and 

 that canes are grown quite out of demand, the remaining articles 

 are all the Settlement furnishes at present for exportation, and it 

 is dependent on foreign markets even for the common necessaries 

 of lite. The exclusive trade which the Dutch carried on, and the 

 breach of which they punished with death, was in tin, pepper, 

 opium, Japan copper, and spices : the two first articles they bought 

 from the Malays at their own prices, having either established fac- 

 tories for melting the tin and collecting the pepper, as at Ehio, 

 Perak, Palembang, or forced them to sell wherever they could find 

 them ; the other three articles they sold to them. Their opeu 

 trade consists in salt, piece goods of India, Macassar cloths, tor- 



