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At that time the late Sir Greame Elphinstone and Mr. 

 Donald Mackay of Gapis estate, Perak, had obtained a small 

 handmill — a model of the mills used on the Thames: — for 

 milling' white pepper. ( As is generally known, black pepper 

 is the fruits or berries of Piper nigrum after having been 

 dried when ripe. White pepper is prepared by macerating 

 the ripe fruits of the same plant in running water for about 

 by washing, and after having been sun-dried and bleached 

 the resulting pepper is known as ordinary white pepper of 

 which the value depends on grade, colour, and aroma.) The 

 process consists of a rotating stone enclosed in a wire cover- 

 ed circular box, and as the pepper is driven off the stone on 

 to the wire covering and back to the stone, the testa, or so- 

 called parchment, is gradually worn off by friction, which 

 gives the seed a fine polished and good marketable appear- 

 ance, so much preferred by sausage makers who are the 

 largest consumers of white pepper. In their trials at 

 Gapis estate native pepper proved too brittle, many of the 

 seeds splitting and much going to pieces; and apart from 

 this drawback, native pepper is too large for the purpose 

 referred to. It was known that Trang pepper stood the 

 milling process in London, and always obtained the highest 

 market price, and as native pepper had failed to respond 

 to the same treatment it was agreed to experiment with the 

 Trang variety with a view of testing if such pepper when 

 locally grown could be milled on the spot — hence the trip. 



Trang is the most southern of the Siamese States on 

 the West Coast of the Peninsula and about twenty hours 

 steam, in a small boat, from Penang. The Settlement or 

 Kongsi is some distance up the Trang river and the pepper 

 gardens still farther away. Thanks to the assistance of the 

 Siamese Consul in Penang my trip was made as interesting 

 as possible; the Commissioner 's nephew (Chinese) took me 

 to the gardens by road as far as possible, and afterwards 

 by elephants, thus being able to cross some wet padi fields 

 and visit the remarkable caves (larger than those in Kedah) 

 and we completed the journey, in part by a rowing boat, and 

 afterwards a conveyance, to a busy little market on the out- 

 skirts of the gardens. We return by rowing boat to the 

 main river and thence in the State yacht and so obtained 

 some idea of a fair extent of country. This however proved 

 disappointing from a botanical point of view, as most of the 

 country at the back of the coast line had been cleared, and 

 to reach the hills would have required more time (and pre- 

 arrangement) than was at my disposal. I can only re- 

 member obtaining a fine flowering species of Curcuma; a 



