278 
INK OF JAVA. 
toddy s obtained from the latter. The sugar tree is a tall palm, 
bearing a round fruit, which grows in large bunches from a common 
footstalk. To obtain the toddy the natives wound the stalk beyond 
the bunch, and place a vessel beneath it ; and having allowed it 
to remain all night, find it in the morning full of sap. When 
drunk before sun-rise this fluid is a refreshing brisk beverage con- 
taining much carbonic acid, is much relished by the natives, and 
was to my taste very agreeable. As the day advances and the 
heat increases, it runs rapidly into the vinous fermentation, and 
afterwards passes into vinegar. 
The sugar tree, called airang by the natives, is one of the most 
valuable plants that nature has given to the Javanese. The same 
juice that gives them the toddy affords, by some simple process, a 
brown sugar : the finer fibres of the bark are made into excellent 
ropes, and the coarser ones are made into pens. I may here 
mention that the ink used by the Javanese is beautifully soft and 
black, and probably equals in most respects that of the Chinese. At 
my request a Javanese manufactured it in my presence. He used 
two ingredients, one a gum resin, which he called damuh , and 
came, he said, from Sumatra ; the other a gum in all respects like 
gum arabic, called cowistah. Having filled a joint of bamboo to the 
very brim with the damuh reduced to powder, he fixed it in the 
ground, and then set the resin on fire, and collected its smoke in 
a plate which he suspended over it. When he had thus obtained 
a sufficient quantity of its soot he mixed it in a mortar with the 
cowistah dissolved in water, and triturated them together till by 
an evaporation they obtained the consistence of paste, then placed 
them in the sun to dry, and thus completed the process. 
I always found in the vicinity of the huts, amongst a variety of 
other beautiful plants, the Champaca of the natives and of Linnaeus, 
the Michelia suaveolens of other authors. Its flowers are used by the 
Javanese to perfume and ornament their dress, and to decorate the 
dead bodies of their relatives, and are sold in large quantities in all 
the bazaars. The Hibiscus rosa Chinensis and the Poinciana pulcher- 
