Men and boys were engaged in plucking the leaves and conveying them, in mat-bags suspended on each end of a bamboo staff, to the boiling-ground.  Here they were boiled until the water was evaporated, and the inspissated juice deposited, which we afterward saw drying in little squares.  It is a powerful astringent, having one-tenth more tannin than any other substance known.  It is used by the natives as a dye, also as a salve for wounds and for chewing with betel-nut and tobacco, besides being largely exported to Europe for tanning leather and for dyeing.  All through the gambier plantations, and in every department of the labor of preparing it for the boiler, I observed that not a female was to be seen, and on inquiring the reason was gravely told that gambier plants would not flourish if touched by a woman!  “Sensitive plants” indeed, so readily to discern the difference between the handling of the two sexes!

Our next call was at a coffee plantation, where we saw sixty thousand young and healthy coffee trees, and two-thirds of them in a bearing condition, yielding in the aggregate not less than fifty thousand pounds of dry coffee per annum.  The trees are beautifully formed, and rise naturally to the height of sixteen feet or more, but when under culture are kept at five or six feet for the convenience of collecting the ripe fruit.  They are planted in rows, the leaves grow opposite each other, and many sessile flowers are produced at their insertion.  The blossoms are pure white, and when the plants are in full bloom nothing can exceed their beauty or fragrance, the branches looking as if frosted with snow, while the air is filled with the delicate perfume.  But the scene is brief as enchanting:  the flowers fade a few hours after they are full blown, to be succeeded by tiny berries that are at first green, then a yellowish red, and finally ripen into a rich crimson or purple; after which, unless gathered at once, they shrivel and drop from the tree.  This is about seven months after the blooms make their appearance.  The pulp is torn off and separated from the seeds by means of a machine, and the grains, after being thoroughly washed, are dried in the sun and put up in bags.  Chek Kongtwau, the Chinese proprietor of the plantation, not only walked with us over his grounds, and answered all our questions with exemplary patience, but insisted that we should go into the house, be presented to his wife and partake of a lunch.  He regaled us with tea and coffee of his own growing and curing, excellent turtle steaks, boiled rice, and curry made of shrimps and cucumbers stewed together.  For vegetables there were the Malay lobak, a tender white radish, and the cocoa-nut bud stewed in the milk of the ripe fruit; and as dessert we had placed before us, for the first time, the far-famed durian, so universal a favorite among Orientals as to command a higher price than any other fruit in market, yet so abominably disgusting in smell that the olfactories of few strangers