Part 15 (1/2)
CULTURE LEFT TO INDIVIDUALS.
It is understood that the Company has declined the monopoly of the trade and left the cultivation to individual exertion; directing however that its own immediate plantations be kept up by the labour of convicts from Bengal, and reserving to itself an export duty of ten per cent on the value of the spices.
CAMPHOR.
Among the valuable productions of the island as articles of commerce a conspicuous place belongs to the camphor.
This peculiar substance, called by the natives kapur-barus,* and distinguished by the epithet of native camphor from another sort which shall be mentioned hereafter, is a drug for which Sumatra and Borneo have been celebrated from the earliest times, and with the virtues of which the Arabian physicians appear to have been acquainted. Chemists formerly entertained opinions extremely discordant in regard to the nature and the properties of camphor; and even at this day they seem to be but imperfectly known. It is considered however as a sedative and powerful diaph.o.r.etic: but my province is to mention such particulars of its history as have come within my knowledge, leaving to others to investigate its most beneficial uses.
(*Footnote. The word kapur appears to be derived from the Sanskrit karpura, and the Arabic and Persian kafur (from whence our camphor) to have been adopted from the language of the country where the article is produced. Barus is the name of a place in Sumatra.)
PLACE OF GROWTH.
The tree is a native of the northern parts of the island only, not being found to the southward of the line, nor yet beyond the third degree of north lat.i.tude. It grows without cultivation in the woods lying near to the sea-coast, and is equal in height and bulk to the largest timber trees, being frequently found upwards of fifteen feet in circ.u.mference.
WOOD.
For carpenters' purposes the wood is in much esteem, being easy to work, light, durable, and not liable to be injured by insects, particularly by the k.u.mbang, a species of the bee, whose destructive perforations have been already mentioned; but is also said to be more affected than most others by the changes of the atmosphere. The leaf is small, of a roundish oval, the fibres running straight and parallel to each other, and terminates in a remarkably long and slender point. The flower has not yet been brought to England. The fruit is described by C.F. Gaertner (De Seminibus Volume 3 page 49 tab. 186) by the name of Dryobalanops aromatica, from specimens in the collection of Sir Joseph Banks; but he has unaccountably mistaken it for the cinnamon tree, and spoken of it as a native of Ceylon. It is also described, from the same specimens, by M.
Correa de Serra (Annales du Museum d'Histoire Naturelle Tome 10 page 159 plate 8) by the name of Pterigium teres; without any reference whatever to the nature of the tree as yielding this valuable drug. A beautiful engraving of its very peculiar foliage has been made under the direction of Mr. A.B. Lambert.
CAMPHOR FOUND IN THE FISSURES.
The camphor is found in the concrete state in which we see it, in natural fissures or crevices of the wood, but does not exhibit any exterior appearance by which its existence can be previously ascertained, and the persons whose employment it is to collect it usually cut down a number of trees, almost at random, before they find one that contains a sufficient quant.i.ty to repay their labour, although always a.s.sisted in their research by a professional conjurer, whose skill must be chiefly employed in concealing or accounting for his own mistakes. It is said that not a tenth part of the number felled is productive either of camphor or of camphor-oil (meniak kapur), although the latter is less rare; and that parties of men are sometimes engaged for two or three months together in the forests, with very precarious success. This scarcity tends to enhance the price. The tree when cut down is divided transversely into several blocks, and these again are split with wedges into small pieces, from the interstices of which the camphor, if any there be, is extracted. That which comes away readily in large flakes, almost transparent, is esteemed the prime sort or head; the smaller, clean pieces are considered as belly, and the minute particles, chiefly sc.r.a.ped from the wood, and often mixed with it, are called foot; according to the customary terms adopted in the a.s.sortment of drugs. The mode of separating it from these and other impurities is by steeping and was.h.i.+ng it in water, and sometimes with the aid of soap. It is then pa.s.sed through sieves or screens of different apertures in order to make the a.s.sortment, so far as that depends upon the size of the grains; but much of the selection is also made by hand, and particular care is taken to distinguish from the more genuine kinds that which is produced by an artificial concretion of the essential oil.
CAMPHOR OIL.
The inquiries I formerly made on the subject (not having been myself in the district where the tree grows) led me to believe with confidence that the oil and the dry crystallized resin were not procured from the same individual tree; but in this I was first undeceived by Mr. R. Maidman, who in June 1788 wrote to me from Tappanuli, where he was resident, to the following effect:
I beg your acceptance of a piece of camphor-wood, the genuine quality of which I can answer for, being cut by one of my own people, who was employed in making charcoal, of which the best for smiths' work is made from this wood. On cutting deep into a pretty large tree the fine oil suddenly gushed out and was lost for want of a receiver. He felled the tree, and, having split it, brought me three or four catties (four or five pounds) of the finest camphor I ever saw, and also this log, which is very rich. My reason for being thus particular is that the country people have a method of pouring oil of inferior camphor-trees into a log of wood that has natural cracks, and, by exposing this to the sun every day for a week, it appears like genuine camphor; but is the worst sort.
This coexistence of the two products has been since confirmed to me by others, and is particularly stated by Mr. Macdonald in his ingenious paper on certain Natural Productions of Sumatra, published in the Asiatic Researches Volume 4 Calcutta 1795. It seems probable on the whole that, as the tree advances in age, a greater proportion of this essential oil takes a concrete form, and it has been observed to me that, when the fresh oil has been allowed to stand and settle, a sediment of camphor is procured; but the subject requires further examination by well-informed persons on the spot.
PRICE.
Head camphor is usually purchased from those who procure it at the rate of six Spanish dollars the pound, or eight dollars the catty, and sells in the China market at Canton for nine to twelve dollars the pound, or twelve to fifteen hundred dollars the pekul of a hundred catties or one hundred thirty-three pounds and a third, avoirdupois. When of superior quality it sells for two thousand dollars, and I have been a.s.sured that some small choice samples have produced upwards of thirty dollars per catty.* It is estimated that the whole quant.i.ty annually brought down for sale on the western side of the island does not exceed fifty pekul. The trade is chiefly in the hands of the Achinese settled at Sinkell, who buy the article from the Batta people and dispose of it to the Europeans and Chinese settlers.
(*Footnote. See Price Currents of the China trade. Camphor was purchased in Sumatra by Commodore Beaulieu in 1622 at the rate of fifteen Spanish dollars for twenty-eight ounces, which differs but little from the modern price. In the Transactions of the Society at Batavia it appears that the camphor of Borneo sells in their market for 3200 rix dollars, and that of j.a.pan for 50 rix dollars the pekul.)
j.a.pAN CAMPHOR.
It has been commonly supposed that the people of China or j.a.pan prepare a fact.i.tious substance resembling native camphor, and impregnated with its virtues by the admixture of a small quant.i.ty of the genuine, which is sold to the Dutch factory for thirty or forty dollars the pekul, sent to Holland, and afterwards refined to the state in which we see it in our shops, where it is sold at eight to twelve s.h.i.+llings the pound. It appears however an extraordinary circ.u.mstance that any article could possibly be so adulterated, bearing at the same time the likeness and retaining the sensible qualities of its original, as that the dealers should be enabled, with profit to themselves to resell it for the fiftieth part of the price they gave. But, upon inquiry of an ingenious person long resident in China, I learned that the j.a.pan camphor is by no means a fact.i.tious substance, but the genuine produce of a tree growing in abundance in the latter country, different in every character from that of Sumatra or Borneo, and well known to our botanists by the name of Laurus camphora, L. He further informed me that the Chinese never mix the Sumatran camphor with that from j.a.pan, but purchase the former for their own use, at the before-mentioned extravagant price, from an idea of its efficacy, probably superst.i.tious, and export the latter as a drug not held in any particular estimation. Thus we buy the leaves of their tea-plant at a high rate and neglect herbs, the natives of our own soil, possessing perhaps equal virtues. It is known also that the j.a.pan camphor, termed fact.i.tious, will evaporate till it wholly disappears, and at all stages of its diminution retain its full proportion of strength; which does not seem the property of an adulterated or compounded body.
Kaempfer informs us that it is prepared from a decoction of the wood and roots of the tree cut into small pieces; and the form of the lumps in which it is brought to us shows that it has undergone a process. The Sumatran sort, though doubtless from its extreme volatility it must be subject to decrease, does not lose any very sensible quant.i.ty from being kept, as I find from the experience of many years that it has been in my possession. It probably may not be very easy to ascertain its superiority over the other in the materia medica, not being brought for sale to this country, nor generally administered; but from a medical person who practised at Bencoolen I learned that the usual dose he gave was from half a grain to one or two grains at the most. The oil, although hitherto of little importance as an article of commerce, is a valuable domestic medicine, and much used by the natives as well as Europeans in cases of strains, swellings, and rheumatic pains; its particles, from their extreme subtlety, readily entering the pores. It undergoes no preparation, and is used in the state in which, upon incision, it has distilled from the tree. The kayu putih (Melaleuca leucadendron) oil, which is somewhat better known in England, is obtained in the same manner; but to procure the meniak kayu or common wood-oil, used for preserving timber or boards exposed to the weather, from decay, and for boiling with dammar to pay the bottoms of s.h.i.+ps and boats, the following method is practised. They make a transverse incision into the tree to the depth of some inches, and then cut sloping down from the notch, till they leave a flat superficies. This they hollow out to a capacity to receive about a quart. They then put into the hollow a bit of lighted reed, and let it remain for about ten minutes, which, acting as a stimulus, draws the fluid to that part. In the s.p.a.ce of a night the liquor fills the receptacle prepared for it, and the tree continues to yield a lesser quant.i.ty for three successive nights, when the fire must be again applied: but on a few repet.i.tions it is exhausted.
BENZOIN.
Benzoin or Benjamin (Styrax benzoin*) called by the Malays kaminian, is, like the camphor, found almost exclusively in the Batta country, to the northward of the equator, but not in the Achinese dominions immediately beyond that district. It is also met with, though rarely, south of the line, but there, either from natural inferiority or want of skill in collecting it, the small quant.i.ty produced is black and of little value.
The tree does not grow to any considerable size, and is of no value as timber. The seeds or nuts, which are round, of a brown colour, and about the size of a moderate bolus, are sown in the padi-fields and afterwards require no other cultivation than to clear away the shrubs from about the young plants. In some places, especially near the sea-coast, large plantations of it are formed, and it is said that the natives, sensible of the great advantage accruing to them from the trade, in a national point of view, oblige the proprietors, by legal regulation, to keep up the succession.
(*Footnote. See a Botanical Description of this tree by my friend Mr.