Thus much will be sufficient to give the reader an idea of pepper-planting as a kind of science.  How far in a commercial light this produce answers the Company’s views in supporting the settlements, is foreign from my purpose to discuss, though it is a subject on which not a little might be said.  It is the history of the island and its inhabitants, and not of the European interests, that I attempt to lay before the public.

SPECIES OF PEPPER.

The natives distinguish three species of pepper, which are called at different places by different names.  At Laye, in the Rejang country, they term them lado kawur, lado manna, and lado jambi, from the parts where each sort is supposed to prevail, or from whence it was first brought to them.  The lado kawur, or Lampong pepper, is the strongest plant, and bears the largest leaf and fruit; is slower in coming to perfection than the second, but of much longer duration.  The leaf and fruit of the lado manna are somewhat smaller, and it has this peculiarity, that it bears soon and in large quantities, but seldom passes the third or fourth year’s crop.  The jambi, which has deservedly fallen into disrepute, is of the smallest leaf and fruit, very short-lived, and not without difficulty trained to the chinkareen.  In some places to the southward they distinguish two kinds only, lado sudul and lado jambi.  Lado sulur and lado anggor are not distinctions of species; the former denoting the cuttings of young creeping shoots commonly planted, in opposition to the latter, which is the term for planting by layers.

SEASONS.

The season of the pepper-vines bearing, as well as that of most other fruit-trees on Sumatra, is subject to great irregularities, owing perhaps to the uncertainty of the monsoons, which are not there so strictly periodical as on the western side of India.  Generally speaking however the pepper produces two crops in the year; one called the greater crop (pupul agung) between the months of October and March; the other called the lesser or half crop (buah sello) between the months of April and September, which is small in proportion as the former has been considerable, and vice versa.  Sometimes in particular districts they will be employed in gathering it in small quantities during the whole year round, whilst perhaps in others the produce of that year is confined to one crop; for, although the regular period between the appearance of the blossom and maturity is about four months, the whole does not ripen at once, and blossoms are frequently found on the same vine with green and ripe fruit.  In Laye residency the principal harvest of pepper in the year 1766 was gathered between the months of February and May; in 1767 and 1768 about September and October; in 1778 between June and August; and for the four succeeding years was seldom received earlier than November and December.  Long-continued droughts, which sometimes happen, stop the vegetation of the vines and retard