74 



Sketch of ike Malay a7i Peninsula. 



Aquila woods also form articles of commerce. 



The fruit trees of the Straits are too well known to require a parti- 

 cular description here. The Durian, Mangoslin^ DuJai, 7'amarindf 

 Langseh, the Rambye, Ramhutan, the cashew or Caju, the Jambu Aijer 

 and Jambu Kling, the custard apple, Pa^j ay a, the Nam Nam, a fruit 

 with a fine flavour acid not unlike that of an apple, the plaintain, 

 pine apple, cocoanut, lime, guava, mango, Puhssan, Tampui, jack, 

 I'ampuni, and a long list of others. 



"While the forests abound with bambus, canes, rattans, parasitical 

 plants, timber and fruit trees, the shores and marshy banks of tlie 

 rivers are fringed with the mangrove, the Api-api, or Pyrrhanthus 

 littoreus, Nibang and Nipah trees. The two last are palmas and of 

 great utility to the natives — of the tough elastic stem of the former, 

 the Areca tigillaria of Jack, bows and spears are constructed, also the 

 posts and lalhs, which almost universally constitute the kmtei or floor- 

 ing of Malay houses. The little buckets in common use in the Straits, 

 called Timba, for carrying water, are made from the leaf like sheath 

 that covers the fruit. Of the leaves of the latter, the A^ipa frulicanSi 

 the thatch is made, called attap. From this tree a sort of sweet toddy 

 is got. Among the palmcs are also the graceful areca or betel-uut 

 palm; the true sago palm, \\\& Melroocylon sagu or the Rumbiy a of the 

 ISlalays, and the Borassus Gomutus or Anou palm, from which is pro- 

 duced but little farina, and that of an inferior description. The Malays 

 obtain from the ajiou fruit excellent nira or toddy, and a sort of coarse 

 sugar, also the hard black spikes used by them for caltrops and pens 

 for writing, which are found enveloped in a black fibrous substance, 

 resembling in texture coir, but stronger. This is used for the thatch 

 of the mosques and better sort of houses in the interior, and for cord- 

 age. The teak tree it is asserted by Mr. Crawfurd is not indigenous in 

 the peninsula ; but the Malays of the interior affirm that it is sometimes 

 found wild under the name otJdti. The Upas tree of the Javans or the 

 Ipoh of the Malays is found, though rarely in the forests. It is de- 

 scribed to be a largish tree with an ash white bark. The aborigines 

 extract a poison also called ipoh from a parasitical plant. 



The Catechu shrub, iVaMc/efl! Gambir, is produced on the rising grounds. 

 The India rubber plant or Urceola elastica is found encircling the trees 

 at Pinang. The Rami Rami, or Urtica tenacissima, of Roxburgh, of the 

 fibres of which the Malays twist fishing lines, cordage, &c. flourishes 

 on the peninsula. The Chinese affirm that the Rami Rami is the iden- 

 tical plant used in China for the manufacture of the famed " grass cloth.'* 

 The cocoanut of the Straits, I am informed, contains a silicious concre* 



