[66] There are some, but very few pepper plantations upon the island, without a Gambir boiling-house being near them; but although those without the benefit of having the boiled Gambir-leaves strewed over the soil, look well, still the planters say, that the pepper produced by the vines, is neither prolific, nor of so fine a quality. [67] As, on a former occasion, I had some doubt whether the shrub was monoecious or dioecious, I took another opportunity of making my examinations; the result of which was, that although a great many of the shrubs had male and female flowers on separate trees, yet a few had both male and female on the same tree. [68] One Chinese proprietor of a Gambir manufactory said, he could make half a pecul of the extract daily. The baskets for packing the Gambir when ready for sale, are made from a common kind of rattan, found in the jungle. [69] Since the above was in the hands of the printer, I understand that the Calcutta government have taken into consideration the subject of quit-rents, and that more judicious regulations have been instituted; so it may be hoped that the rising prosperity of the settlement will no longer be impeded. [70] The Malays at Singapore, in the employ of Europeans, often use the flowers of this shrub for cleansing shoes, by rubbing them with the petals of the flowers, which contain a quantity of purplish black astringent juice. After rubbing them over the shoes, they polish the latter by aid of a brush; it certainly prevents the white dresses, usually worn in eastern climates, from being sullied by the shoes, which often happens when blacking has been used; this is probably the cause of its being called the _shoe-flower_ by Europeans. [71] Rumphius says that the natives of Amboyna were unwilling to bring him specimens of the plants from the mountains, from the full persuasion, that if the appendages were gathered and emptied of water, heavy rain would overtake them before their return. In conformity with the same belief, when suffering from a long drought, they pour the water from all the appendages they can find, satisfied that the ceremony will be followed by a change of weather. Such belief is curiously contrasted with their notions of the medicinal properties of the water contained in them, which they believe an infallible specific for incontinence of urine.—_Rumph. cit. in Abel’s China_, pp. 340, 341. [72] “At Amboyna,” says Labillardiere, “the natives contrive to procure threads from the bastard aloe, called _Agave vivipara_: the master of the house went and cut a branch of this plant, and resting it on its thigh in order to scrape it with his large knife, and take off its pulp, he obtained from it a fascicle of threads as long as the leaf, and as strong as those of our best hemp.”