241 
At that time the late Sir Greame Elphinstone and Mi. 
Donald Maekay of Gapis estate, Perak, had obtained a small 
handmill — a model of the mills used on the Thames foi 
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 haring been sun-dried and bleached 
the resulting pepper is known as ordinary white pepper of 
which the value depends on grade, colour, and aionia v/ I lie 
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 appeal - 
anoe. 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 ot tne 
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 varietv 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 ot 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 
bv elephants, thus being able to cross some wet pacli 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 ot me 
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 
