In the Canarese language and the kindred dialects of Malabar it is called by a name which is rendered as adike, or adika, in scientific books, but would stand more chance of being correctly pronounced by the average Englishman if it were spelled uddiky.  The coast districts of Canara and Malabar being famed for their betel nuts, the trade name of the article was taken from the languages current there, and was tortured by the Portuguese into areca.  Over the greater part of India the natives use the Hindustanee name supari, but by Englishmen it is best known as the betel nut, because it is always found in company with the betel leaf, with which, however, it has no more connection than strawberries have with cream.  The one is the leaf of a kind of pepper vine, and the other is the seed, or nut, of a palm.  But nature and man have combined to marry them to one another, and it is difficult to think of them separately.

In life the betel vine climbs up the stem of the areca palm, and in death the areca nut is rolled in a shroud of the betel leaf and the two are munched together.  Other things are often added to the morsel, such as a clove, a cardamom, or a pinch of tobacco, and a small quantity of fresh lime is indispensable.

What is the precise nature of the consolation derived from the chewing of this mixture it is not easy to say.  Outwardly it produces effects which are visible enough, to wit, a most copious flow of saliva, which is dyed deep red by the juice of the nut, so that a betel nut chewer seems to go about spitting blood all the day.  As every Hindu is a betel nut chewer, those 943,903 superficial miles of country which make up our Indian Empire must be bespattered to a degree which it dizzies the mind to contemplate.  This is one of the difficulties of Indian administration.  In large towns and centres of business it is found necessary to fortify the public buildings in various ways.  The Custom House in Bombay has the wall painted with dark red ochre to a height of three or four feet from the ground.

But these are the outward results.  What is the inwardness of the thing?  In a word, why do the people chew betel nut?  Surely not that they may spit on our public buildings.  That is a chance result, not sought for and not shunned.  There is, of course, some deeper reason.  Early travellers in India were much exercised about this and used to question the people, from whom they got some curious explanations.  One reports, “They say they do it to comfort the heart, nor could live without it.”  Another says, “It bites in the mouth, accords rheume, cooles the head, strengthens the teeth and is all their phisicke.”  A Latin writer gets quite eloquent. “Ex ea mansione”—­by that chewing—­he says, “mire recreantur, et ad labores tolerandos et ad languores discutiendos.”