Their Habit of chewinq Betele. 181 
about eight or ten gallons, and it is furprifing to fee with 
how fmall a quantity of fire they may be kept boiling ; a palm 
leaf, or a dry italk, thruft in now and then, is fufficient : in 
this manner they boil all their vidtuals, and make all their 
fyrup and fugar. It appears by Frazier’s account of his voy- 
age to the South Sea, that the Peruvian Indians have a con- 
trivance of the fame kind, and perhaps it might be adopted 
with advantage by the poor people even of this country, where 
fuel is very dear. 
Both fexes are enflaved by the hateful and pernicious habit 
of chewing betele and areca, which they contradl even while 
they are children, and pradtife inceflantly from morning till 
night. With thefe they always mix a kind of white lime, 
made of coral ftone and Ihells, and frequently a fmall quan- 
tity of tobacco, fo that their mouths are difguftful in the high- 
eft degree both to the fmell and the fight : the tobacco taints 
their breath, and the beetle and lime make the teeth not on- 
ly as black as charcoal, but as rotten too. I have feen men 
between twenty and thirty, whofe fore-teeth have been con- 
firmed almoft down to the gums, tho’ no 2 of them were exact- 
ly of the fame length or thicknefs, but irregularly corroded 
like iron by ruft. This lofs of teeth is, I think, by all who 
have written upon the fubjedt, imputed to the tough and ilrin- 
gy coat of the areca nut ; but I impute it wholly to the lime ; 
they are not loofened, or broken, or forced out, as might be 
expedted if they were injured by the continual chewing of hard 
and rough fubftances, but they are gradually wafted like me- 
tals that are expofed to the adtion of powerful acids ; the 
flumps always adhering firmly to the focket in the jaw, when 
there is no part of the tooth above the gums : and poftibly thofe 
who fuppofe that fugar has a bad effedt upon the teeth of Eu- 
ropeans, may not be miftaken, for it is well known' that re- 
fined loaf fugar contains a confiderable quantity of lime ; and 
he that doubts whether lime will deftroy bone of any kind, 
may eafily afeertain the fadt by experiment. 
If the people here are at any time without this odious 
mouthful, they are fmoaking. This operation they perform 
by rolling up a fmall quantity of tobacco, and putting it into 
one end of a tube about fix inches long, and as thick as a 
goofe quill, which they make of a palm leaf. As the quanti- 
ty of tobacco in thefe pipes is very fmall, the efted! of it is in- 
creafed, efpecially among the women, by fwallowing the 
fmoke. 
Wnen the natives of this ifiand were firft formed into a 
civil fociety, is not certainly known, but at prefent it is di- 
vided into five principalities or nigrees : Laai, Seba, Re- 
oeeua, Timo, and Massara, each of which is governed 
by its refpeclive Raja or King. The Raja of Seba, the prin- 
Vol. II. cipality 
