262 
Notes  on  Gambier. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1888. 
considerations  or  market  rates  than  by  the  fitness  of  his  plantation  for 
the  cropping.  The  shrubs  are  cut  down  with  no  sparing  hand  ;  leaves, 
shoots,  and  twigs  are  all  lopped  off  by  the  Chinaman's  knife,  and 
the  plant  is  well  nigh  reduced  to  the  condition  of  a  mop-stick  and  left 
with  barely  sufficient  leafage  to  enable  it  to  carry  on  its  existence, 
attempt  is  made  to  manure  the  plantation.  The  soil,  deprived  of  its 
natural  shade,  is  left  either  to  be  burned  into  the  consistency  of  a  brick, 
or  else  the  whole  place  is  overrun  with  lalang.  The  only  wonder  is 
that  a  gambier  plantation  is  not  used  up  sooner.  It  is  quite  an  error 
to  suppose  that  the  plant  exhausts  the  soil  like  indigo.  With  sim- 
ilar treatment  gambier  would  last  as  long  as  pepper.  The  spent  leaves 
from  the  gambier  pans  are  said  to  be  very  good  for  pepper ;  these 
leaves  are  quite  exhausted  by  the  time  they  leave  the  bangsal,  and 
cannot  possibly  stimulate  or  nourish  the  vines,  but  they  form  a  useful 
shade  for  the  roots,  and  they  are  very  serviceable  in  keeping  off  both 
white  and  red  ants ;  the  bitter  principle  of  the  spent  leaves  repels 
these  destructive  insects  which  are  otherwise  attracted  to  the  vines 
when  they  blossom. 
The  manufacture  of  gambier  is  as  barbarous  as  its  cultivation.  The 
green  leaves  and  shoots  are  roughly  chopj^ed  with  a  parang  and 
thrown  into  a  qualli,  which  is  then  filled  up  with  water ;  the  furnace 
below  the  iron  pan  is  of  the  roughest  possible  construction,  and  con- 
sumes an  immense  quantity  of  firewood.  While  the  leaves  are  boil- 
ing they  are  incessantly  prodded  with  a  sort  of  wooden  trident  in  order 
to  break  them  up  and  assist  the  process  of  maceration.  When  the 
amount  of  gutta "  which  has  exuded  from  the  leaves  causes  the 
liquor  to  be  thick  and  syrupy,  the  leaves  are  taken  out  and  placed  in 
a  wooden  trough  which  overhangs  the  pan  at  such  an  angle  that  the 
liquor  drains  freely  back  into  the  pan  from  the  steaming  mass  in  the 
trough.  The  liquor  in  the  qualli  is  then  ladled  into  small  and  shal- 
low wooden  tubs ;  the  leaves  in  the  trough  are  once  more  swept  into 
the  pan  and  reboiled,  after  which  they  are  taken  out  and  thrown  out- 
side to  be  afterwards  carried  off  to  the  pepper  garden.  The  liquor  left 
in  the  qualli  from  the  second  boiling  is  too  weak  to  be  converted  into 
gambier,  but  is  an  excellent  extract  in  which  to  boil  up  the  next  lot 
of  green  leaves. 
As  soon  as  the  extract  in  the  small  wooden  tubs  already  spoken  of  is 
sufficiently  cool  to  allow  of  the  hand  being  placed  in  it,  a  very  curious 
process  of  agitation  is  adopted  by  the  Chinese,  which  it  is  difficult  to 
