Among the various productions of the southern districts in 
Malabar are the pepper- vine, and cassia, (piper nigrum, & laurus 
cassia, Lin.) The former is a staple commodity at Anjengo, and 
grows on a beautiful vine, which, incapable of supporting itself, 
entwines round poles prepared for it, or, as is more com- 
mon in the Travencore plantations, the pepper-vines are planted 
near mango and other trees of straight high stems, which be- 
ing stripped of the lower branches, the vine embraces the 
trunk, covering it with elegant festoons, and rich bunches of 
fruit, in the picturesque style of the vineyards in Campagna 
Felice. The mango and jac trees are generally used for this pur- 
pose; few pepper gardens contain more than eight or ten trees: 
the vines are planted near the trunk, and led to it while young; 
the stem is tough, knotty, and strong: some begin to bear in the 
fourth year, others not till the sixth; they are in perfection about 
the ninth or tenth year, and continue bearing as many years 
longer, if in a congenial soil; from that period the vine gra- 
dually decays; a new soil is then prepared for a considerable 
depth round the tree, for the reception of fresh shoots from flourish- 
ing vines. 
The leaf of the pepper plant is large, and of a bright green; 
the blossoms appear in June, soon after the commencement of 
the rains; they are small, of a greenish white; succeeded by 
bunches of green berries, which turn brown and hard as they 
ripen: the pepper is gathered in February, and has the same 
appearance as in Europe. The flavour of pepper is more or less 
communicated to the fruit of the tree which supports it; a cir- 
cumstance not at all relished by the proprietor, as many mangoes 
