should not be suffered to fix itself, if it can be avoided.  As the vines increase in size and strength less attention to the ground is required, and especially as their shade tends to check the growth of weeds.  In lopping the branches of the chinkareens preparatory to the rains, some dexterity is required that they may fall clear of the vine, and the business is performed with a sharp prang or bill that generally separates at one stroke the light pithy substance of the bough.  For this purpose, as well as that of gathering the fruit, light triangular ladders made of bamboo are employed.

TIME OF GATHERING.

As soon as any of the berries or corns redden, the bunch is reckoned fit for gathering, the remainder being then generally full-grown, although green; nor would it answer to wait for the whole to change colour, as the most mature would drop off.

MODE OF DRYING AND CLEANSING.

It is collected in small baskets slung over the shoulder, and with the assistance of the women and children conveyed to a smooth level spot of clean hard ground near the garden or the village, where it is spread, sometimes upon mats, to dry in the sun, but exposed at the same time to the vicissitudes of the weather, which are not much regarded nor thought to injure it.  In this situation it becomes black and shrivelled, as we see it in Europe, and as it dries is hand-rubbed occasionally to separate the grains from the stalk.  It is then winnowed in large round shallow sieves called nyiru, and put in large vessels made of bark (kulitkayu) under their houses until the whole of the crop is gathered, or a sufficient quantity for carrying (usually by water) to the European factory or gadong at the mouth of the river.  That which has been gathered at the properest stage of maturity will shrivel the least; but, if plucked too soon, it will in a short time, by removal from place to place, become mere dust.  Of this defect trial may be made by the hand; but as light pepper may have been mixed with the sound it becomes necessary that the whole should be garbled at the scale by machines constructed for the purpose.  Pepper that has fallen to the ground overripe and been gathered from thence will be known by being stripped of its outer coat, and in that state is an inferior kind of white pepper.

WHITE PEPPER.

This was for centuries supposed in Europe to be the produce of a different plant, and to possess qualities superior to those of the common black pepper; and accordingly it sold at a considerably higher price.  But it has lost in some measure that advantage since it has been known that the secret depended merely upon the art of blanching the grains of the other sort, by depriving it of the exterior pellicle.  For this purpose the ripest red grains are picked out and put in baskets to steep, either in running water (which is preferred), in pits dug for the occasion near the banks of rivers, or in stagnant pools.