190 



trnfrrcjuenfly ends in acquiring a strong relish (or 

 it. With the Malays, Hie desire for this fruit is a 

 passion, to satisfy which they will perform toilsome 

 journeys and brave dangers. He ffhp can eat and 

 digest a dorian, and not find his liver birred up I)} a 

 host of blue imps, may well despise the auti-dispcptic 

 precepts of a Kichenei\ a Sinclair or a Johnstone. 

 The dorian scarcely extends further up the Peninsula 

 than Tavo\ province, fits gold t mi- footed majesty 

 of Ava was wont, before the absorption of that portion 

 of his dominions, to have the fruit Ji ain<iuirted to his 

 capital at Amerapooora, by relays of horsemen, and 

 by boats polled by 40 or SO men. The fruff can 

 hardfy \te preserved, exposed to the air beyond five 

 or six days; the Burmans used therefore to wrap them 

 up iu cloth, and then coat them all over with clay. As 

 the tree is high and wide-spreading, no more than 

 90 can well be planted on one orloug of land, and one 

 half of these will probably be males. Tuo crops 

 in three years only can be expected, which remark 

 is applicable to almost all of the indigenous fruit- 

 trees of the Straits. The fruit is allowed to fill to the 

 ground when ripe. The tree bears about the end 

 of th^ 7th. year; following the rule which also applies 

 to other fruit-trees here. It is su p posed to live 80 

 or 100 years. The average produce, for three years, 

 wilt hardly exceed 150 dorains for each tree. The 

 cultivation is limited, and could not he mucji increased 

 «iih ade< piate profit, especially as supplies of it* are 

 imported from the bordering countries. It mry 

 here be once for alt observed, that the Penang fi'uit- 

 se/isou embraces June July and August, and that 

 there is an occasional small irregular crop at some 

 intervening period, and also that the cr*t of raising 

 the indigenous fruits is nearly alike for each, as are 

 the periods when the) respectively come into bearing. 



