V.—Pepper Growing in Upper Sarawak.— By 
G. Dalton. 
* 
Historical. 
A large area of the low, undulating land watered by 
the Sarawak River and its upper branches, has been for 
a long time past given over to the cultivation of the 
pepper-vine ; and it is with the pepper industry of this 
region that the following notes propose to deal. 
In regard to the general cultivation of this plant in 
Borneo in former da}’g, we learn from Messrs. Baring- 
Gould and Bampfylde’s recent book * on Sarawak, that 
as far back as the middle ages “this cultivation attracted 
“ particular attention to the island ; and to obtain a control 
“ over the pepper trade by depriving the Turks of their 
“control over the trade in spices was one of the main 
“ incentives to the discovery of a route to the East by the 
“ Gape.” The same writers go on to suggest that pepper 
was probably introduced first by the Hindus, and that 
the Chinese, finding the industry a profitable one, im¬ 
proved and extended its cultivation. In 1809, we are 
told, the estimated export from Brunei was 3,5°° tons, 
and that a hundred years before that the export from 
Banjermasin was 2,000 to 3,000 tons. Sir Spenser St. 
John t in 1856 noticed remains of deserted pepper- 
gardens far up the Limbang River (Kuala Madihit), which 
were known to have been worked by a not-long-departed 
settlement of Chinese, and other writers have made 
similar notes on this subject in different parts of Borneo. 
* A History of Sarawak under its Two White Rajahs, by S. 
Baring-Gould and C. A. Bampfylde, 1909, pp. 430, 431. 
f In the Forests of the Far East, by Sir Spenser St. John, 1863,. 
2nd Ed., Vol. II., p. 330. 
Sar. Mus. Journ., No. 2, 1912. 
