The ripe fruit, soaked in salt and water, to extract the juices, is strained, and administered as a useful aperient; and from its quality in cleansing the blood, many families prefer this fruit in their curries to other acids.  From the tamarind-tree, preserves are made for the affluent, and chatnee for the poor, to season their coarse barley unleavened cakes, which form their daily meal, and with which they seem thoroughly contented.

From what cause I know not, but it is generally understood that vegetation does not thrive in the vicinity of the tamarind-tree.  Indeed, I have frequently heard the Natives account for the tamarind being so often planted apart from other trees, because they fancy vegetation is always retarded in their vicinity.

The jahmun-tree[19] is also held in general estimation for the benefit of the fruit, which, when ripe, is eaten with salt, and esteemed a great luxury, and in every respect preferable to olives.  The fruit, in its raw state, is a powerful astringent, and possesses many properties not generally known out of Native society, which may excuse my mentioning them here.  The fruit, which is about the size and colour of the damson-plum, when ripe is very juicy, and makes an excellent wine, not inferior in quality to port.  The Natives, however, are not permitted by their law to drink wine, and therefore this property in the fruit is of no benefit to them; but they encourage the practice of extracting the juice of jahmun for vinegar, which is believed to be the most powerful of all vegetable acids.  The Native medical practitioners declare, that if by accident a hair has been introduced with food into the stomach, it can never digest of itself, and will produce both pain and nausea to the individual.  On such occasions they administer jahmun vinegar, which has the property of dissolving any kind of hair, and the only thing they are aware of that will.  Sherbet is made of this vinegar, and is often taken in water either immediately after dinner, or when digestion is tardy.

The skin of the jahmun produces a permanent dye of a bright lilac colour, and with the addition of urzeez (tin), a rich violet.  The effect on wool I have never tried, but on silks and muslins the most beautiful shades have been produced by the simplest process possible, and so permanent, that the colour resisted every attempt to remove it by washing, &c.[20]

The mango-tree stands pre-eminently high in the estimation of the Natives, and this is not to be wondered at when the various benefits derived from it are brought under consideration.  It is magnificent in its growth, and splendid in its foliage, and where a plantation of mango-trees, called ’a tope’, is met with, that spot is preferred by travellers on which to pitch their tent.  The season of blooming is about February and March; the aromatic scent from the flowers is delightful, and the beautiful clustering of the blossoms is not very unlike the horse-chestnut