Ardent as the admirers of the areca may be in their admiration of the “buyo,” we have never seen more than one translation of a Malayan poem in which the masticatory was extolled, and this, unfortunately, we are unable to present to our readers. The gods have either not made the votaries of betel so poetical as the servants of the pipe, or the paeans in praise thereof are locked up from us in the cabalistic characters of their national language. The unmistakable marks left by the habit on the lips, teeth, and gums, are certainly extolled by them as marks of beauty. In the poem already referred to, the lover addresses his mistress in praise of the redness of her teeth and lips, and the fragrant odour of her breath, produced by the sweet “buyo” secreted in the hollow of her cheek. White teeth are therefore held in abomination, and as this is also the opinion of certain African tribes, who stain theirs with the juice of flowers, ours _must_ be a barbarous nation to respect such albino masticators. * * * * * N.B.—The average annual export of areca nuts from Ceylon is 50,000 cwts., and the price a fraction below 20s. per cwt. CHAPTER XIX. UNDER THE PALMS. “A wind blew warm from the east, and it lifted its arms hopelessly; and when the wind, love-laden with most subtle sweetness, lingered, loth to fly, the palm stood motionless upon its little green mound, and the flowers were so fresh and fair, and the leaves of the trees so deeply hued, and the native fruit so golden and glad upon the boughs, that the still warm garden air seemed only the silent, voluptuous sadness of the tree; and had I been a poet my heart would have melted in song for the proud, pining palm.”——G. W. CURTIS. Two species of a kind of pepper vine are extensively cultivated, with the areca palm, in all the countries of the East where chewing the betel is indulged in. These belong to the same family of plants as those producing the common black pepper and the long pepper of commerce. They are known to botanists as _Chavica betle_ and _Chavica siraboa_. They are similar in their habits, being trailing plants, with some resemblance to the ivy, but more tender and fragile. The betel palms may be often seen with the pepper, climbing and twining around their tall, straight, slender trunks, or they are trained about poles of bamboo in the manner of hops in the hop gardens of Kent. Almost every one with a piece of land cultivates the pepper for his own consumption. In the markets incredible quantities of the leaves are offered for sale, in piles carried about in baskets. In Northern India, sheds are constructed for the growth of the pepper. These are from twenty to fifty yards in length, and eight or twelve broad, of bamboo, to shelter the plants from the sun. Great attention is paid to the cultivation, and the plants are carefully attended to, and cleaned every morning.