mace.  It is carefully separated from the nutmeg itself, and dried in the shade.  While undergoing this process, it is frequently sprinkled with sea-water, to prevent its original tint turning black instead of yellow.  In addition to this net-work, the nutmeg is covered with a thin, soft rind.  The nutmeg itself is also dried, then smoke-dried a little, and afterwards, to prevent its turning mouldy, dipped several times in sea-water, containing a weak solution of lime.

The clove-tree is somewhat smaller, and cannot boast of such luxuriant foliage, or such fine large leaves as the nutmeg-tree.  The cloves are the buds of the tree gathered before they have had time to blossom.  They are first smoked, and then laid for a short time in the sun.

Another kind of spice is the areca-nut, which hangs under the crown of the palm of the same name, in groups containing from ten to twenty nuts each.  It is somewhat larger than a nutmeg, and its outer shell is of so bright a colour, that it resembles the gilt nuts which are hung upon the Christmas-trees in Germany.  The kernel is almost the same colour as the nutmeg, but it has no net-work:  it is dried in the shade.

The Chinese and natives of the place chew this nut with betel-leaf and calcined mussel-shells.  They strew the leaf with a small quantity of the mussel-powder, to which they add a very small piece of the nut, and make the whole into a little packet, which they put into their mouth.  When they chew tobacco at the same time, the saliva becomes as red as blood, and their mouths, when open, look like little furnaces, especially if, as is frequently the case with the Chinese, the person has his teeth dyed and filed.  The first time I saw a case of the kind I was very frightened:  I thought the poor fellow had sustained some serious injury, and that his mouth was full of blood.

I also visited a sago manufactory.  The unprepared sago is imported from the neighbouring island of Borromeo, and consists of the pith of a short, thick kind of palm.  The tree is cut down when it is seven years old, split up from top to bottom, and the pith, of which there is always a large quantity, extracted; it is then freed from the fibres, pressed in large frames, and dried at the fire or in the sun.  At this period it has still a yellowish tinge.  The following is the manner in which it is grained:  The meal or pith is steeped in water for several days, until it is completely blanched; it is then once more dried by the fire or in the sun, and passed under a large wooden roller, and through a hair sieve.  When it has become white and fine, it is placed in a kind of linen winnowing-fan, which is kept damp in a peculiar manner.  The workman takes a mouthful of water, and spurts it out like fine rain over the fan, in which the meal is alternately shaken and moistened in the manner just mentioned, until it assumes the shape of small globules, which are constantly stirred round in large, flat pans until they are dried, when they are passed through a second sieve, not quite so fine as the first, and the larger globules separated from the rest.