I was told that they
belonged to the boa species.
After having proceeded eight English miles in four hours, we left
the boats, and following a narrow footpath, soon reached a number of
plots of ground, cleared from trees, and planted with pepper and
gambir.
The pepper-tree is a tall bush-like plant, that, when trained and
supported with props, will attain a height varying from fifteen to
eighteen feet. The pepper grows in small, grape-like bunches, which
are first red, then green, and lastly, nearly black. The plant
begins to bear in the second year.
White pepper is not a natural production, but is obtained by dipping
the black pepper several times in sea-water: this causes it to lose
its colour, and become a dirty white. The price of a pikul of white
pepper is six dollars (24s.), whereas that of a pikul of black is
only three dollars (12s.).
The greatest height attained by the gambir plant is eight feet. The
leaves alone are used in trade: they are first stripped off the
stalk, and then boiled down in large coppers. The thick juice is
placed in wide wooden vessels, and dried in the sun; it is then cut
into slips three inches long and packed up. Gambir is an article
that is very useful in dyeing, and hence is frequently exported to
Europe. Pepper plantations are always to be found near a plantation
of the gambir plant, as the former are always manured with the
boiled leaves of the latter.
Although all the work on the plantations, as well as every other
description of labour at Singapore, is performed by free labourers,
I was told that it cost less than if it were done by slaves. The
wages here are very trifling indeed; a common labourer receives
three dollars a month, without either board or lodging; and yet with
this, he is enabled not only to subsist himself, but to maintain a
family. Their huts, which are composed of foliage, they build
themselves; their food consists of small fish, roots, and a few
vegetables. Nor is their apparel more expensive; for, beyond the
immediate vicinity of the town, and where all the plantations are
situated, the children go about entirely naked, while the men wear
nothing more than a small apron about a hand's-breadth wide, and
fastened between the legs: the women are the only persons dressed
with anything like propriety.
The plantations that we now saw, and which we reached about 10
o'clock, were cultivated by Chinese. In addition to their huts of
leaves, they had erected a small temple, where they invited us to
alight.
