and much inferior in quality, comes from Holland in solid masses, generally flat, and of a square figure: the third, which is the worst of all, and usually called common oil of mace, is an artificial composition of sevum, palm oil, and the like, flavoured with a little genuine oil of nutmeg.

In the act of gathering and preparing nutmegs, the natives, when the fruit is ripe, ascend the trees, and gather it by pulling the branches to them with long hooks. Some are employed in opening them immediately, and in taking off the green shell or first rind, which is laid together in a heap in the woods, where in time it putrefies. As soon as the putrefaction has taken place, there spring up a kind of mushrooms, called boleti moschatyni, of a blackish colour, and inuch valued by the natives, who consider them as delicate eating. When the nuts are stripped of their first rind, they are carried home, and the mace is carefully taken off with a small knife. The mace, which is of a beautiful red, but afterwards assumes a darkish red colour, is laid to dry in the sun for the space of a day, and is then removed to a place less exposed to his rays, where it remains for eight days, that it may soften a little. They afterwards moisten it with sea water, to prevent it from drying too much, or from losing its oil. They are careful, however, not to employ too much water, lest it should become putrid, and be devoured by the worms. It is last of all put into small bags, and squeezed very close.

The nuts, which are still covered with their ligneous shell, are for three days exposed to the sun, and afterwards dried before a fire, till they emit a sound when they are shaken; they then beat them with small sticks, in order to remove their shell, which flies off in pieces. These nuts are distributed into three parcels; the first of which contains the largest and most beautiful, which are destined to be brought to Europe; the second contains such as are reserved for the use of the inhabitants; and the third contains the smallest, which are irregular or unripe. These are burnt; and part of the rest is employed for procuring oll by pressure. A pound of them commonly gives three ounces of oil, which has the consistence of tallow, and has entirely the taste of nutmeg. Both the nut and mace, when distilled, afford an essential, transparent, and volatile oil, of an excellent flavour.

The nutmegs which have been thus selected, would soon corrupt

if they were not watered, or rather pickled, with lime-water made from calcined shell-fish, which they dilute with salt water till it attains the consistence of fluid pap. Into this mixture they plunge the nutmegs, contained in small baskets, two or three times, till they are completely covered over with the liquor. They are afterwards laid in a heap, where they heat, and lose their superfluous moisture by evaporation. When they have sweated sufficiently, they are then properly prepared, and fit for a sea-voyage.

The medicinal qualities of nutmeg are supposed to be aromatic, anodyne, stomachic, and astringent; and with a view to the lastmentioned effects, it has been much used in diarrhoeas and dysenteries. To many people the aromatic flavour of nutmeg is very agreeable; they however should be cautious not to use it in large quantities, as it is apt to affect the head, and even to manifest an hypnotic power in such a degree as to prove extremely dangerous. Bontius speaks of this as a frequent occurrence in India; and Dr. Cullen relates a remarkable instance of this soporific effect of the nutmeg, which fell under his own observation, and hence concludes, that in apoplectic and paralytic cases this spice may be very improper. He observes that a person by mistake took two drams or a little more of powdered nutmeg; he felt it warm in his stomach, without any uneasiness; but in about an hour after he had taken、 it, he was seized with a drowsiness, which gradually increased to a complete stupor and insensibility; and not long after he was found fallen from his chair, lying on the floor of his chamber in the state mentioned. Being laid a-bed, he fell asleep; but waking a little from time to time, he was quite delirious; and he thus continued alternately sleeping and delirious for several hours. By degrees, however, both these symptoms diminished; so that in about six hours from the time of taking the nutmeg, he was pretty well recovered from both. Although he still complained of head-ache, and some drowsiness, he slept naturally and quietly the following night, and next day was quite in his ordinary health.

The officinal preparations of nutmeg are, a spirit and essential oil; and the nutmeg in substance roasted, to render it more astringent. Both the spice itself and its essential oil enter several compositions, as the confectio aromatica, spiritus ammoniæ, com., &c. Mace possesses qualities similar to those of the nutmeg, but is less astringent, and its oil is supposed to be more volatile and acrid.

[Linn. Percival, Cullen. Woodville.

SECTION XXI.

Pepper Plant.

Piper. LINN.

THE pepper plant genus contains upwards of fifty known varieties, most of them natives of America or the West Indies, but a few of the Cape. The chief are, piper nigrum, or black pepper, so denominated from the colour of its berries, but which, when stripped of their skin and steeped in water, become white, and then constitutes the white pepper of the shops; piper longum, or long pepper; piper betle, or betel; and piper cubeba, or cubebs.

The black or common pepper-plant is chiefly found in Sumatra ; usually planted by a thorny tree, round which it creeps and winds like ivy, which it resembles in its leaf, though it is something larger and of a paler green. Having run up a considerable height, the twigs on which the berries hang bend down, and the fruit appears in clusters nearly as large as bunches of grapes, and of much the same figure, but are distinct, like our currants or elder-berries. They produce no fruit till the third or fourth year, after which they bear for the three following years six or seven pound weight of pepper. In the three next years they decrease one-third, both in the quantity and size of the pepper, and thus continue decreasing for four or five years longer. When the plant begins to bear, the branches of the tree, through which it creeps, must be lopped off, lest they intercept the rays of the sun, of which this plant stands much in need. When the clusters of the fruit are formed, care must also be taken to support them with poles, lest the branches should be drawn down by their weight.

The pepper-plant has commonly a white flower in April, which knots in June; and the next month the fruit being green and large, the natives make a rich pickle of it, by steeping it in vinegar. In October it is red, in November it begins to grow black, and in December it is all over black, and consequently ripe. This is generally the case, though in some places it is ripe sooner.

The fruit being ripe, they cut off the clusters, and dry them in the sun, till the berries fall off the stalk, which, notwithstanding the excessive heat, it does not do in less than fifteen days, during which the clusters are turned from side to side, and covered up at night.

Some of the berries neither change red nor black, but continue white these are used in medicine, and sold at double the price of the other. But the inhabitants, finding that foreigners want them for the same use, have discovered a way of whitening the others, by taking them while they are red, and washing off the red skin with water and sand, so that nothing remains but the heart of the pepper, which is white.

Pepper thrives in almost every soil between the two extremes which prevail on this island, the sandy and the yellow clay. In the pepper-gardens the ground is marked out into regular squares of six feet, which is the usual distance allowed to the plants, of which there are usually a thousand in each garden. The English East India Company engross the trade of this article; their servants, and the merchants under their protection, being free to deal in every other commodity the country affords. The price for many years paid for the pepper was ten Spanish dollars, or fifty shillings, per bakar of five hundred weight; by a late resolution of the company, it was afterwards increased to fifteen dollars, and the present opening with the continent will perhaps produce another advance.

Here

On the island of Borneo there are three sorts of black pepper; the first, called molucca, or lout pepper, is the best; the second, named caytongee-pepper, is a middling sort; and the third, and worst sort, is negaree-pepper, of which they have the greatest quantity, but it is small, hollow, light, and usually full of dust; it should therefore be bought by weight, and not by measure. is also white pepper, which is sold at double the price of the black. The cultivation of the pepper gardens is chiefly the employment of the Chinese who are settled in the country. They do not let the vine which bears the pepper twist round a chinkareen-tree, as is the custom at Sumatra, but drive a pole, or rather strong post, into the ground, so that the vine is not robbed of its nourishment. Forrest asserts, that he has counted seventy and even seventy-five corns of pepper growing upon one stalk, which is more than is produced at Sumatra.

The island of Java originally produced no spice but pepper, which is now sent thence to Europe in great quantities; but its consumption on the island is very inconsiderable, the inhabitants preferring capsicum, or, as it is called in Europe, cayenne-pepper. On the island of Madagascar, pepper grows in small quantities,

but no care is taken to cultivate it. It grows in clusters upon shrubs, which trail upon the ground.

In Africa, what constitutes the principal wealth of the part called the Grain Coast is the abundance of Guinea pepper produced there, in which they have a great trade, not only with all the neighbouring inland nations, but with Europeans.

The plant on which this production grows, differs in size according to the nature of the soil, and other circumstances. It shoots up like other shrubs, and like ivy runs up some neighbouring tree; what grows upon the plant thus supported has a finer flavour, and a hotter and more pungent taste, than what grows wild in the fields. The leaf, which is soft and pointed, is twice as long as it is broad, and in the rainy season has a delicate smell; soon after which it fades, and at the same time loses both its beauty and flavour; but the leaf and buds, when in perfection, on being bruised between the fingers, have an agreeable aromatic smell. Under the leaves, and all along the stalk, are small filaments, by which it fixes itself to the nearest tree. Its flower cannot be described, as it buds in those seasons when no trade is carried on with the coast. It is however certain that it does flower: the fruit succeeds, in long, slender, red shells, or pods, separated into four or five cells, and covered with a rind, which the negroes believe to be poisonous, and is only a thin film, that soon dies and crumbles. [Linnæus. Woodville.

CHAP. V.

MEDICINAL PLANTS.

SECTION I.

Manna-tree.

Fraxinus Ornus.-LINN.

THE fraxinus ornus, or flowering ash, from which, for the most part,

we obtain the manna of the shops, greatly resembles our common ash: it is lofty, much branched, and covered with greyish bark. The young shoots produce the leaves, which are pinnated, opposite, and consist of several pair of pinnæ, or small leaves, terminated by