1832.] 
ISLAND OF SUMATRA. 
187 
this article maintained, both in Europe and India, held out so 
much encouragement to the pepper planters of Sumatra to in- 
crease its cultivation, that the quantity produced in that one year 
was from one hundred to one hundred and twenty thousand 
piculs of one hundred and thirty-seven and a half American 
pounds each ; employing, at the least calculation, six thousand 
tons of shipping, and a capital of one million two hundred 
thousand dollars ! Nearly the whole crop of that year, to- 
gether with the crop of several preceding years, were taken off 
in American vessels ! Since that period, this trade has been very 
fluctuating ; and the low price to which pepper has been reduced 
in America, has tended much to discourage the natives from in- 
creasing their crops. 
There are few other articles of trade to be procured on the 
pepper coast; but in its neighbourhood, and immediately south 
of it, at the ports of Tappoose, Sinkel, and Barroos, gum-benzoin 
and crude camphire are produced in considerable quantities. The 
last named article is bought by the coasting craft at the rate of 
about twelve dollars per pound ! In all the pepper plantations, ' 
the soil appears to be perfectly congenial to the coffee-plant, 
which in many places seems to grow spontaneously. This, to- 
gether with the sugarcane, which grows here profusely, is, no 
doubt, indigenous to the island. 
The present monarch of Acheen appears to exercise little or 
no authority over those rajahs who are situated at any distance 
from the capital ; and nothing but his presence and actual force, 
which he has heretofore frequently employed, will compel them 
to pay him his lawful tribute. The probability is, that at this 
time, out of forty or fifty thousand dollars, his annual revenue 
from the exports of pepper, he is not able to collect more than 
five or six thousand. The rajahs, therefore, of the different forts, 
although they nominally acknowledge allegiance to the king, are 
virtually so many independent rulers, exercising individual au- 
thority, waging and carrying on war with each other, -deceiving 
and cheating the king in every possible manner. They appear, 
however, to exercise very little authority over their own subjects, 
and in many cases it seems merely nominal. The king is fre- 
quently at war with the rajahs ; and the latter, in their turn, are 
frequently at war with the different factions which beset their 
