The quantity of nut produced on this coast is stated to be eighty thousand peculs. When there is no immediate demand for this article, it is not shelled, but preserved in the husk, as it is considered not to be so liable to be destroyed by the worm in that state; but although this is the opinion of the natives on the coast, yet I have seen nuts destroyed totally by the worm while in the husk, in the space of two months. The produce of the first month, or month-and-a-half, amounting usually to forty thousand peculs, the natives informed us is exported; and the second gathering, amounting to about the same quantity, is consumed in the country. The nuts were brought on board the ship in large boats, (originally built and employed as fishing vessels, except when required for this employment, they are from three to four tons burthen each, and are to be purchased for twenty or twenty-five dollars,) in bulk, and Manilla mat-bags, and are taken on board the ships in bulk. The quantity of Areka-nut imported by the Chinese, amounts to forty-five or forty-eight thousand peculs annually, exclusive of that brought from Cochin China, the amount of which is not known; in 1832, from a failure of the usual supply of nuts from Cochin China, forty-eight thousand peculs, imported from other places, sold so high as four dollars and three-quarters the pecul; the price it usually fetches in the China market is from two to three and three-quarter dollars the pecul. The principal consumption of the nut as a masticatory (in conjunction with the leaf called betel, produced from a vine, the _Piper betel_) is in the provinces of Quang, ton, (Canton, of Europeans,) Quang, si, and Che, keang, and may be seen, exposed for sale, on little stalls about the suburbs of Canton, with the other additional articles used in the preparation; it is also used as a mordant for coarse dyes. The Areka-nuts brought from Cochin China are considered by the Chinese the best imported. This may, however, arise from prejudice in favour of the production of a country so nearly allied to them, to that introduced by foreigners. In the central provinces of Hoo, kwang, and Kang, si, the nut is, after being bruised and pounded, mixed with the green food of horses as a preventive against a diarrhœa, to which that kind of food sometimes subjects them. It was likewise mentioned to me by a Chinese, that it is used as a domestic medicine in the north of China, small pieces being boiled; the decoction is administered in various visceral affections. A cargo of this article generates so much heat as to raise the thermometer in the hold forty degrees above that on the deck; and from this circumstance, and the quantity of steam generated, the crew are prevented from sleeping between decks.