14? LONG PEPPER. 
ripe, and stripped of their external coat or skin. To 
effect this they are steeped, for about a week, in salt 
water, by the end of which time the skins burst. They 
are then dried in the sun,, rubbed between the hands, 
and winnowed. Thus cleared from their skins they 
are rendered smaller and more smooth than black 
pepper. 
As the acridity of pepper lies principally in the skin, 
this kind becomes, of course, much less pungent than 
the other; but it has one recommendation, that it can 
be made only of the best and soundest grains, taken at 
their most perfect state of maturity. 
Pepper is an article of considerable traffic betwixt 
this country and the East Indies. That which is im- 
ported from Malabar is considered better than any 
other. The quantity of pepper vended at the East 
India Company's sales has, in some years, exceeded six 
millions of pounds' weight, of which seven or eight 
hundred thousand pounds have been retained for home 
consumption. 
Both black and white pepper are in daily use, not 
only as a spice, but also in cookery. When coarsely 
ground, pepper is eaten with peas, cabbages, cucum- 
bers, and other flatulent and cold vegetables ; and oc- 
casionally also with fish. It is sometimes employed in 
medicine as a stimulant. 
A singular imposition respecting pepper is occa- 
sionally practised in retail shops in London : artificial 
pepper-corns, both black and white, are mixed and 
sold with real pepper. The detection of this fraudulent 
mixture, however, is easy. If a handful of the sus- 
pected pepper be thrown into water, the artificial corns 
will fall to powder, or be partially dissolved, while the 
true pepper-corns will remain whole. The fraudulent 
grains are said to be made of peas-meal. 
21. LONG PEPPER is the fruit of a slender climbing 
shrub (Piper longum) which grows in the East Indies. 
It is of cylindrical shape, about an inch and half in length, 
and a quarter of an inch in thickness ; and is formed by the 
