them for a moment in his fingers, he thrust them into his pouch as he
re-entered the house.

We found the areca trees planted in rows, and growing to the height of
some forty feet, with straight, branchless trunks, terminated at the
top with ten or twelve pinnated leaves, each of which is full five
feet long. The fruit grows in clusters immediately below the tuft
of leaves. The outer shell is of a bright golden hue, that gradually
deepens to crimson as the fruit matures, and when opened shows a
brown, astringent nut about the size of a nutmeg. This is the portion
chewed with chunam and tobacco all over the East; and its use is so
universal that one seldom meets a man, woman or child of any Oriental
nation whose mouth is not filled, always and everywhere, with the
execrable mixture. Pepper leaves are sprinkled with chunam (lime) and
rolled up: a slice of betel-nut with a quid of tobacco is placed in
the mouth first, and then the rolled-up leaf is bitten off, and all
masticated together. When a visitor calls the betel-box is immediately
passed to him; and as in regard to the eating of salt in Western Asia,
so, in the eastern and southern portions, those who have once partaken
of betel-nut together are ever after sworn to faithful and undying
friendship. The use of the areca-nut preserves the teeth from decay,
but keeps them stained of a disgusting brick-red color.

On the outer edge of Cassim's plantation, where the soil was damp, we
noticed several long rows of the nepah palm, generally known as attap,
and extensively used for thatching houses in the East. It has the same
huge pinnated leaves as most of the other palms, but is destitute of
the long straight trunk, the leaves commencing from near the root, and
the entire height being seldom more than twelve or fourteen feet. We
saw also a few specimens of the hutan, a strange-looking palmate shrub
with leaves fifteen feet long, which are generally used by the Malays
for sails, in lieu of canvas, for their piratical proas. But the
strangest of all the palms we saw was the talipat, so called from the
Bali word _talipoin_, a priest; and the name was originally derived
from the fact that the sacred fans used by Booddhist priests in
their religious ceremonies are formed of its leaves. This fan is a
prescribed item of clerical costume, and no conscientious Booddhist
priest ever appears without this long-handled fan held directly in
front of his face, to prevent the sacred coun