ounces.
After a long stay in the woods, frequently of three months, during
which they may fell a hundred trees, a party of thirty persons
rarely bring away more than 15 or 20 pounds of solid camphor, worth
from 200 to 250 dollars. The variety and price of this costly
substance are enhanced by a custom which has immemorially prevailed
among the Battas, of delaying the burial of every person who during
his life had a claim to the title of Rajah (of which each village
has one) until some rice, sown on the day of his death, has sprung
up, grown and borne fruit. The corpse, till then kept above ground
among the living, is now, with these ears of rice, committed to the
earth, like the grain six months before; and thus the hope is
emblematically expressed that, as a new life arises from the seed,
so another life shall begin for man after his death. During this
time the corpse is kept in the house, enclosed in a coffin made of
the hollowed trunk of a Durion, and the whole space between the
coffin and the body is filled with pounded camphor, for the purchase
of which the family of the deceased Rajah frequently impoverish
themselves. The camphor oil is collected by incisions at the base of
the trunk, from which the clear balsamic juice is very slowly
discharged.

In Sumatra the best camphor is obtained in a district called Barus,
and all good camphor bears that local name. It appears that the tree
is cut down to obtain the gum and that not in one tenth of the trees
is it found. Barus camphor is getting scarce, as the tree must be
destroyed before it is ascertained whether it is productive or not.
About 800 piculs are annually sent to China. The proportion between
Malay and Chinese camphor is as eighteen to one; the former is more
fragrant and not so pungent as the latter.

Nine hundred and eighty-three tubs of camphor were exported from Java
in 1843; 625 bales were imported in 1843, the produce of the Japanese
empire; and 559 piculs exported from Canton in 1844.

The price of unrefined camphor in the Liverpool market in July, 1853,
was L4 to L4 10s. the cwt. There have been no imports there direct in
the last two years.

Camphor (says Dr. Ure) is found in a great many plants and is
secreted in parity by several laurels; it occurs combined with the
essential oils of many of the _labiacae_; but it is extracted for
manufacturing purp