EDIBLE SWALLOW NESTS. 
59 
fineness. Those of the best sort are exceedingly 
scarce. They are sold at the rate of from eight 
to fourteen hundred rix-dollars per one hundred and 
twenty-five pounds, which amounts, in our money* 
to the sum of from thirty to forty-two shillings per 
pound. This high price, and the great avarice of 
the Chinese, give rise to much dishonesty and 
thieving. The two places above mentioned were, 
about fifty years ago, sold by auction, by the Dutch 
East India Company, to the highest bidder, who 
received for them above twenty thousand pounds 
more than they expected, which proves the value 
and quantity of these singular productions. About 
two thousand five hundred pounds' weight of these 
nests are collected every year in the island of Java, 
which, at an average of the above prices, amounts 
to about five thousand pounds a-year. 
Some of these bird-caverns are dreadfully exposed, 
particularly a few situated on the coast ; these are 
washed by the sea, which forces its way so deep 
into the latter, that fish may be caught in it; but, 
on account of the steepness of the rocks, the nests 
can only be collected at the most imminent risk. 
The young birds are eaten, both by the Javanese 
and the Europeans in India; but they are considered 
to be very heating, and are, moreover, difficult to 
procure. The nests, on the other hand, when they 
have been boiled to a kind of slimy sort of soup, 
exposed in the night-time to the dew, and mixed 
with sugar, are exceedingly cooling, and they are, 
therefore, much used in violent fevers ; they are, 
also, prescribed, and with great success, in cases of 
hoarseness and sore throats. They are, however, 
