342 
ON THE CAMPHOR- TREE OF SUMATRA. 
Use and Price of the Camphor in Sumatra. — Camphor is here 
collected in a comparatively small quantity. While some thous- 
ands of quintals of benzoin are yearly sent into the European mar- 
kets (e. g., in 1837 three thousand,) but ten to fifteen quintals, and 
often less, are sent of Sumatra camphor. The price is £2 10s. a 
pound. It generally comes from Baros, whence the name of Baros 
camphor. From that place several cavarans set out yearly to col- 
lect this substance in the woods. The same product comes from 
Tapanuli, Natal, and Ajer Bangis. It is not exported, for it 
is collected for the use of the natives wherever the tree grows. 
Besides the small quantity which is employed as a remedy 
against various diseases, we must mention here a particular use, 
by which a great deal of camphor is wasted, and its rarity and 
price much increased; and this lavish application of it, together 
with the slaughter of hundreds of buffaloes sometimes in one day, 
is one of the principal causes of the poverty of the Batta royal 
families (Rajahs.) 
A very ancient custom prescribes, that at the death of a consid- 
erable person among the Battas, who, during his life, had a claim 
to the title of Rajah (sovereign prince,) rice be sowed in a sacred 
place, and that the corpse be kept above ground among the living 
till the rice has sprung up, grown, and borne fruit. Not before 
the rice is ripe and gathered in do they think it right to bury the 
corpse, and it is actually interred with the ears of the rice that was 
sown on the day of the decease. Thus the burial takes place after 
five or six months. (The remarkable ceremonies of such a funeral 
are elsewhere described by Dr, Junghuhn.) The corpse, like the 
rice-grain six months before, is then committed to the earth ; and 
thus the hope is emblematically expressed, that, as a new life 
arises from the seed, another life shall begin for man after his 
death. 
During the period previous to interment, the corpses are pre- 
served in wooden coffins w r ithin the houses, the w T omen wailing 
day and night. Trunks of Durio Zibethinus (the Durian) are 
hollowed out to contain the bodies. They are carved with much 
art, and have at the under part small apertures, through which 
the fluids may escape. The corpses contained in these coffins are not 
only spread over with pounded camphor, but entirely covered with 
it, in such a manner that all the space between the coffin and the 
